DETECTION AND MANAGEMENT OF STUDENT STRESS IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

Stress, defined by Hans Selye since 1984, is a subject of great interest today, due to the significant pressure on public health services and the inevitable consequential impact on education, manufacturing and the general economy. Physically, stress generates numerous disorders that can create increased heart rate, blood pressure, ischemic heart disease and heart attack. Psychologically, stress reduces attention and memory ability. The psychological effects can be great as accident rates may increase and cause serious behavioral disorders (apathy, aggression) and mental disorders (depression, anxiety, suicide). Stress has always been present but today it has come to the fore. It has been analysed especially in adults, but today, the attention of specialists is directed towards children and adolescents who are equally exposed to various stress factors and who are the tomorrow's generation, a generation that has seen great change in comparison to their forebears. Therefore we are proposing to analyse and determine the level of stress of Romanian medical students and develop a digital self-evaluation application. This application will allow any student, using standardized scales to measure perceived stress and determine at what level stress becomes apparent especially at the time of sitting exams. The program will generate a stress-strain scale, and then, based on the data obtained, it will generate emotional rebalancing therapy, using various coping strategies as part of a stress management regime. Students' stress level analysis is based on the most commonly used Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) psychological tool. This scale measures how each medical student who is confronted with various difficult, stressful situations occurring in everyday life and the consequent effect upon them. They face a lot of stressors (very busy curriculum, tiring and draining education timetables, assimilating large amounts of technical and scientific information, specific medical language) together with the high demands and deadlines imposed by lecturers. The questions are straightforward and aim to determine the subject’s current level of stress. They are free of specific content and relate to what the subject has experienced and thought about in the last month. At the same time the Brief COPE tool is applied for assessing, analyzing and the information will lead to the development of coping strategies.

Stress management within the academic environment is a must and the application can be a useful tool for identifying and consequently reducing stress-related symptoms. The positive impact on the mental health of students will be able to assist in preventing mental illness. Moreover, this illness is becoming more frequent among young people and students. Addressing this issue will increase the performance of the learning process and the wellbeing of those who receive the benefits of this application.