International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | January 2018 | Vol 5 | Issue 1 Page 302 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Vidya DC et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2018 Jan;5(1):302-307 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Comparison of perceived stress among medical and engineering students of Karpaga Vinayaga Educational Group, Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu Vidya D. C. 1 *, Swetha N. 2 , Thirunaaukarasu D. 1 , Gladius Jennifer H. 1 , Karthikeyan E. 1 INTRODUCTION Stress is a complex, dynamic process of interaction between a person and his or her life. Although it is a stimulus and response, it is a process in which we perceive and cope up with threats and challenges around us. 1 Doctors and engineers are facing a great burden of expectations from the society. Meeting these expectations is always challenging and stressful, which they start to experience from their student life. 2 Stress in students life, may be due to various reasons such as academics, personal situations, environment, time management or economic circumstances. 3 These are referred as stressors, ABSTRACT Background: Doctors and engineers are experiencing stress from their student life. There are very few studies from South India, which have looked into comparison of perceived stress among medical and engineering students. Hence, this study was attempted with an objective to estimate the overall prevalence and to compare the perceived stress, and to know associated factors influencing stress, among medical and engineering students of Karpaga Vinayaga Educational group, Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in Karpaga Vinayaga Educational Institute, Tamil Nadu, from June to September 2016. Based on simple random sampling, students from medical and engineering college were selected. After obtaining informed consent, a self administered questionnaire was administered. The data was analysed in SPSS version 18.0. Results: Out of 560 study subjects, 135 (24.2%) had low stress, 390 (69.6%) had moderate stress and 35 (6.2%) severe stress. Stress was associated with personal problems OR=2.29 (95% CI: 1.19-4.39), sleep disturbance OR=4.12 (95% CI: 1.57–10.7), difficulty in understanding the subject OR=2.32 (95% CI: 1.19–4.53), difficulty in time management OR=2.47 (95% CI: 1.40–4.35) and home sickness (p=0.001) in medical students whereas among engineering students, stress was associated with personal problems OR=2.01 (95% CI: 1.02–3.92), sleep disturbance OR=2.14 (95% CI: 1.1–4.1) and difficulty in time management OR=2.6 (95% CI: 1.48–4.58). Conclusions: The overall prevalence of perceived stress was 75.8%. The prevalence of perceived stress among medical students was 76.8% as compared to 75% of engineering students. Among medical and engineering students, stress was associated with personal problems, sleep disturbance and difficulty in time management. Keywords: Stress, Medical students, Engineering students, Associated factors of stress 1 Department of Community Medicine, Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, India 2 Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, India Received: 14 November 2017 Accepted: 04 December 2017 *Correspondence: Dr. Vidya D. C., E-mail: vidyadc85@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20175802