Assessing the correlation between perceived stress and academic achievement among health sciences students

Introduction: University students are vulnerable to a myriad of academic challenges that can impede their learning processes and lead to adverse educational outcomes. Perceived stress among students is one such challenge. Objective: this study's objective was to examine the influence of perceived stress on academic performance among health sciences students. Methods: A total of 210 first-year health sciences students in their second semester were recruited from different Saudi universities in the Riyadh region. An online questionnaire was administered to the health sciences cohort using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). This instrument comprises 14 items designed to assess emotions and thoughts experienced over the preceding month. The data obtained were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 27.0) to compute descriptive statistics, including means, standard deviations, ranges, frequencies, and percentages, to summarize participants' demographic characteristics, perceived stress levels, and measures of academic achievement. Results: The results indicated that a significant proportion of students experienced frequent stress at varying intensities, along with difficulties in managing it. The majority of the participants (74.8%) were categorized as having moderate stress, whereas 14.3% reported high stress and 11.0% reported low stress. Furthermore, the analysis revealed significant negative correlations between perceived stress and academic performance in health science courses, implying that students with elevated stress levels tended to attain lower academic scores. Ultimately, the findings suggested that the students experiencing heightened stress typically exhibited diminished academic performance, as reflected in their cumulative grade point average (GPA). These findings underscore the importance of addressing the issue of perceived stress among students, advocating for various courses of action for students, educators, and policymakers.