Objectives:
The aim of this study was to adapt the “Potential Stressor Factors of Medical Students in a Problem-based Learning Medical Curriculum Scale” to Turkish medical students and to assess its psychometric properties.
Materials and Methods:
After translating into Turkish, the scale and socio-demographic information form were administered to 632 medical school students from the first to third years training with problem based curricula. After evaluating internal construct validity of the scale with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), reliability was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. In the second stage, factor scores were compared for selected socio-demographic characteristics.
Results:
The two-dimensional structure of the scale was confirmed by CFA with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. For “Medical training” factor, while the stress perception levels of third year students, females, psychological support takers and students whose parents were illiterate were higher, those of students living with their family or accommodating at home were lower. Also, psychological support takers and students whose parents were illiterate had higher stress perception levels for Personal issues factor.
Conclusion:
Turkish translation of “Potential Stressor Factors of Medical Students in a Problem- based Learning Medical Curriculum Scale”, can be used on Turkish medical students training with PBL curricula in order to assess stress perception levels related to medical training and personal issues.
Keywords: Problem-Based Learning, Medical Students, Stress, Validity, Reliability, Confirmatory factor analysis
