IMPACT OF MEDICAL STUDENT WELL-BEING WORKSHOP ON THE MEDICAL STUDENTS’ STRESS LEVEL: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Objective: medical training has always been regarded as a highly stressful environment to students. this article described a preliminary data on impact of a stress-management programme on medical students’ stress level. methods: this is a quasi-experimental before after comparison study design. the programme was run over half-day and convenient sampling method was applied. sample size as calculated for this preliminary study was 38. the 12 items general health questionnaire (ghq-12) was administered prior to the programme and four months later. data was analysed using spss version 12. results: 34 participants were involved in this study. this study found that there was a significant difference in participants’ ghq-12 scores before and after the programme (p<0.001). it also found that the percentage of distressed participants to have significantly reduced after they went through the programme (p<0.05). conclusion: this study showed that the programme is a promising stress-management programme with the evidence of positive impact on the medical students’ mental health by improving and reducing their stress level. apart from that it is a well accepted programme by the medical students. perhaps similar approach can be considered relevant to be incorporated in other set up. asean journal of psychiatry, vol.11 (1): jan –june 2010: 56-63