Stress as a Predictor of Cognitive Functions among Medical Students

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19181811

Sadhana Yadav, Sonali Dixit, Vaishnavi Tripathi, and Pinki Gautam (Department of Psychology, JDGPGC, Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh)

Medical students are generally under considerable stress and pressure during their medical training, as they are required to understand as well as deal with complex medical concepts, practices, extended study hours, rigorous selection process, physical, emotional and financial strain. And, this elevated stress adversely affects their cognitive functioning, which often leads to poor decision-making, inadequate problem- solving, memory and attention-related problems. The higher-order cognitive processes, like working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control, play a vital role in learning, decision-making and overall academic performance. The present study aimed to identify the relationship between stress and cognitive functions among medical students. The study employed a correlational design. A hundred (N=100) medical students aged between 18-32 years were taken as samples for the current study. In the present study, Life Stress Scale constructed by Kumar (2002) was used to examine the levels of stress and BRIEF (Adult-A) developed by Roth, Isquith and Gioia (2005) and Hindi version prepared by Yadav and Singh (2017) was used to measure cognitive functions among the participants. Correlational analysis showed that a significant positive relationship exists between stress and cognitive functions (executive functions). Medical students with high levels of stress reported poor executive functioning (r = .636, p<0.01) across most of the domains of the behavioral regulation index (r = .591, p<0.01) and metacognition index (r = .595, p<0.01). The study contributes to the understanding of how stress impacts essential cognitive processes in high-pressure academic environments and emphasizes the need for institutional support to mitigate its effects.