Determination of Mental Stress Effects on the Cognitive Function in Medical Students of LUMHS at the time of Examination

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cognition function refers to memory, the ability to learn new information, language, and reading conception. Mental stress may disrupt cognitive function. The medical students are exposed frequently to emotional disturbance and stress and these may adversely affect the cognition.
OBJECTIVE: To analyse the extent of impairment of cognitive function due to mental stress during examination of medical students by implicates the application of Stroop test.
STUDY DESIGN: Cross sectional comparative study
SETTING: The study was conducted at the Department of Physiology LUMHS Jamshoro over 6 months duration from August 2015 to February 2016.
METHODOLOGY: The volunteer information brochures / leaflets were posted on the main notice board of the LUMHS campus. Total 150 participants (n=100 having their examination within a week, n=50 not  preparing for examination) were selected by simple random sampling technique. All four test of Stroop
test were performed (Power lab T-125 AD-instrument Australia) and time taken by participants were noted and compared between both groups.
RESULTS: Breathing rate, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) showed statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) between two groups. The differences in the results of all four test for Stroop effect; Monochrome reading, color naming, reading color words and color naming were highly
significant between those having their examination ahead (group A) within one week and those having no examination ahead (group B). Congruent Stroop test – exercise 1 and 2 showed significant differences for time domain per single word in group A and B respectively. Incongruent Stroop test
showed time per single word of 2.3000 vs. 1.7500 seconds in exercise 3 (t-value 23.13, p-value 0.0001).  Time taken per single word was noted as 2.1000 vs. 1.6100 seconds in exercise 3 (t-value 16.56, p-value 0.0001).
CONCLUSION: As the results showed increased reaction time and interferences for Stroop effect among medical students under examination stress, it may be concluded that the mental stress adversely affects the cognitive functions.