A Cross Sectional Study To Compare Stress Levels Among Students Between Two Universities In Cyberjaya

Abstract

Introduction: Stress is known to be a neurological and physiological reaction of the body to adapt to a new condition. Since early in the year 2020, social life has changed for many people around the world. Government restrictions and new social norms led to a reduction in mobility. An effort to understand stress in isolated or quarantined individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic is important.  The impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on university students has caused an increase in their perceived stress due to reasons such as isolation, online classes, network problems and peer and parental pressure. Our study aims to determine the prevalence of stress among university students in Cyberjaya, to compare the stress levels among students between the University of Cyberjaya and Multimedia University, and to determine the relationship between stress levels and academic performance among university students.

Method: A cross sectional study which was conducted among university students from the University of Cyberjaya and Multimedia University. The participants were chosen to take part in this study through convenient sampling. The chosen participants were then required to fill out a self-administered questionnaire that was distributed online.

Results: There were a total of 161 respondents to our questionnaire, with a mean age of 21.46 ± 1.63 years. The majority of the respondents for our study were females (61.5%). The prevalence of low, moderate and high perceived stress was 15.1%, 66.7% and 18.3%, respectively among students in University of Cyberjaya whereas the prevalence of low, moderate and high perceived stress in Multimedia University students was 11.8 %, 67.6% and 20.6 %, respectively. There was no significant difference between the stress levels of University of Cyberjaya students and Multimedia University students (p > 0.005). In both universities, there was no relationship between stress levels and academic performance.

Conclusion: This study revealed that most of the students from University of Cyberjaya and Multimedia University appeared to be moderately stressed. There were no differences between the stress level among the students from University of Cyberjaya compared to the students from Multimedia University (p > 0.005). There was no relationship between the stress levels and academic performance among the university students from both universities (p>0.005).