Perceived stress and cardio-somatic physiology in health care students: A cross-sectional analysis of sleep and physical activity

Abstract

Background: Students pursuing studies in the healthcare field may experience higher stress levels and related bodily symptoms. It may be due to pressure from their academics, clinical workload etc., Aim: To examine the association between perceived stress and cardiosomatic symptom burden among healthcare students and to evaluate sleep quality and physical activity. Methods: This cross-sectional online survey was conducted among Indian healthcare students. A total of 218 eligible participants were included after excluding responses from participants aged <18y and invalid age entries. The PSS-10 was used to measure perceived stress, PSQI for assessment of sleep quality, GAD-7 for anxiety assessment, and PHQ-9 for the assessment of depressive symptoms. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 20.72years, and 60.1 % were female. Higher perceived stress scores were associated with a higher cardiosomatic symptom burden, higher SSS-8 scores, poor sleep quality, and higher depression and anxiety scores. Perceived stress was associated with cardiosomatic symptoms in the unadjusted model and after adjusting for age and sex. However, the estimate was attenuated after adjustment for the PHQ-9 and GAD-7. Conclusion: Higher perceived stress was associated with a greater cardiosomatic symptom burden among healthcare students. Furthermore, this association was linked to sleep quality, anxiety, and depression. This shows that student wellbeing activities need to address psychological disturbances, sleep, and stress as interconnected aspects rather than individual concerns.