Assessment of academic stress and its association with academic achievement among health science students

Background: Excessive stress may cause serious psychosocial and emotional health consequences. Academic stress influences the academic achievement of students. Aim: This study aimed to assess academic stress and its association with academic achievement among health science students in Kathmandu. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 268 health science students. Data were collected using the Scale for Assessing Academic Stress, to measure academic stress, academic activity-related questions, and academic Grade Point Average (GPA) from the previous semester which were used for academic performance. We selected students by systematic random sampling. We used a self-administered questionnaire method for data collection. Data were entered into EpiData software and transferred to IBM SPSS (version 25) for analysis. Descriptive analysis was performed by percentages and median (interquartile range). We used Pearson’s correlation and Chi-square tests to measure the association between academic stress, performance, and related factors. Results: A total of 31.7% and 35.4% of respondents had moderate and high academic stress, respectively. The correlation between academic achievement and academic stress was found to be negative (r = −0.201 and P = 0.001), but statistically significant. The association between sex (P = 0.008), academic environment at home (P = 0.041), teaching–learning materials at home (P = 0.022), and academic stress was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: More than two-thirds of respondents had moderate and high academic stress. The relationship between stress and academic achievement is negatively correlated, which suggests that students do not need high academic stress to achieve substantial academic performance.