Academic stress in high school students during the transition from online to offline exams: A retrospective study from post-COVID-19 era

Abstract

Background: Stress is a common phenomenon. Everyone faces stress, albeit of different intensity and due to different reasons. Stress in students can be due to many reasons—non-academic and academic. Academic stress is a major deciding factor in the fluctuation in academic achievements. It has also been implicated in mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, and even suicide, and physical illnesses like hypertension, obesity, etc., Additionally, post-COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there have been adverse effects on the education sector due to the offline–online mode of classes. Aim: To assess academic stress in high school students, to compare stress between male and female students, and to find the correlation of academic stress with the 10th standard's result, i.e. percentage. Material and Methods: A retrospective study was designed by the Department of Psychiatry, of a medical college of Madhya Pradesh in schools of Khandwa and nearby areas from June 2022 to August 2022. A total of 162 high school students were selected as per inclusion and exclusion criteria. Perception of Academic Stress (PAS) scale and Scale for Assessing Academic Stress (SAAS) were used to assess academic stress. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS version 25 using the Student t-test and Pearson correlation tests. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 15.82 ± 0.81 years. There was a significant difference in the mean percentage of the 9th and 10th standard. Both genders differed significantly in class percentages, but not the mean SAAS score. Most students had moderate stress. Only the cognitive indicator of SAAS was found to be significantly correlated with 10th standard percentages. Conclusion: Academic stress is ubiquitous. External factors like the transition from online to offline exams in addition to anticipation of the exams themselves can add to the stress. Prompt identification of stress can alleviate the emergence of future psychiatric illnesses.