STRESS COPING STRATEGIES AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF PAMO UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE PORT-HARCOURT

Most people experience stress at some point in their lives. Depending on the level of severity, they can detrimentally impact one’s quality of life. This study wascarriedoutto assess the coping strategies of stress among undergraduates of PAMO University of medical science during their course of study. Three objectives were used to guide this study and they include; assessing the level of stress among undergraduates of PAMO University of medical sciences, determining the factors that predispose undergraduates to stress and ascertaining the coping strategies ofstress among undergraduates. Also, three null hypotheses were formulated in this study. The study population was 410 undergraduate students. Simple random sampling technique was used to get the sample size of 203undergraduate students. The research design adopted for this study was a descriptive cross sectional design. Instrument utilized for data collection was a self structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 26. The result from the hypothesis was analyzed using ANOVA at 0.05level of significance which shows that stress has significant influence on the coping strategies for stress among undergraduates.Therefore the null hypothesis was rejected. The results of findings shows that the respondents have a moderatestress level major findings indicates that 127(62.9%) of the respondents have felt stressed about the financial burden of their education in the last month, also they indicated that 120 (59.4%) have felt stressed about their academic performance in the last month. The respondent source of information was from undergraduate students. In conclusion there is need for educators and curriculum planners to make a positive contribution toward minimising the stress level of students. It was recommended that students should develop effective time management skills and practice stress reducing techniques like meditation and also know the coping strategies that work for them.