title: Coping styles and its association with sources of stress in undergraduate medical students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The two ubiquitous factors that have been identified in medical courses to underlie mental health are stress and different coping styles adopted to combat stress.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To find the association between coping styles and stress in undergraduate medical students.
  
  
  METHODS
  A medical college in Central Kerala. A cross-sectional study design was adopted.
  
  
  METHODS
  Source and Severity of Stress Scale, Medical Student Version, was used to assess the source and nature of stress. Brief Cope was used to find out the coping styles adopted.
  
  
  METHODS
  The statistical analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 and SAS. Chi-square analysis was used to find the association between coping styles and stress domains and with the overall stress score.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There is a significant positive association between overall stress score and coping styles (P=0.001) of 'Negative cope', 'Blame', and 'Humor'. 'Positive cope' and 'Religion' has significant positive association with 'Academics' (P=0.047) and 'self Expectations' (P=0.009). 'Blame' (P<0.001) has very high significant positive association with 'Academics', 'self expectation', and 'Relationships'. Very high significant positive association is further found between 'Humor' (P<0.001) and 'self expectations', 'Living conditions', and 'Health and Value conflict'. 'substance Use' is positively associated in high significance to 'Health and Value conflict' (P<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The outcome of the study emphasizes the need for stress management techniques in the medical school.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Amrita Viswa Vidyapeetham, Ponekkara, Cochin, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: Sandhya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cherkil
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Dentistry, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Amrita Viswa Vidyapeetham, Ponekkara, Cochin, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: Seby J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Gardens
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Amrita Viswa Vidyapeetham, Ponekkara, Cochin, Kerala, India.
authors.forename: Deepak Kuttikatt
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Soman
keywords: Coping styles; medical students; stress