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Dr. Mamta Gupta,
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Aug 2018




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Thanking you
With sincere regards
Dr. Rajendra Kumar Ghritlaharey, M.S., M. Ch., FAIS
Associate Professor,
Department of Paediatric Surgery, Gandhi Medical College & Associated
Kamla Nehru & Hamidia Hospitals Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462 001 (India)
E-mail: drrajendrak1@rediffmail.com
On May 11,2011




Dr. Shankar P.R.

"On looking back through my Gmail archives after being requested by the journal to write a short editorial about my experiences of publishing with the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research (JCDR), I came across an e-mail from Dr. Hemant Jain, Editor, in March 2007, which introduced the new electronic journal. The main features of the journal which were outlined in the e-mail were extensive author support, cash rewards, the peer review process, and other salient features of the journal.
Over a span of over four years, we (I and my colleagues) have published around 25 articles in the journal. In this editorial, I plan to briefly discuss my experiences of publishing with JCDR and the strengths of the journal and to finally address the areas for improvement.
My experiences of publishing with JCDR: Overall, my experiences of publishing withJCDR have been positive. The best point about the journal is that it responds to queries from the author. This may seem to be simple and not too much to ask for, but unfortunately, many journals in the subcontinent and from many developing countries do not respond or they respond with a long delay to the queries from the authors 1. The reasons could be many, including lack of optimal secretarial and other support. Another problem with many journals is the slowness of the review process. Editorial processing and peer review can take anywhere between a year to two years with some journals. Also, some journals do not keep the contributors informed about the progress of the review process. Due to the long review process, the articles can lose their relevance and topicality. A major benefit with JCDR is the timeliness and promptness of its response. In Dr Jain's e-mail which was sent to me in 2007, before the introduction of the Pre-publishing system, he had stated that he had received my submission and that he would get back to me within seven days and he did!
Most of the manuscripts are published within 3 to 4 months of their submission if they are found to be suitable after the review process. JCDR is published bimonthly and the accepted articles were usually published in the next issue. Recently, due to the increased volume of the submissions, the review process has become slower and it ?? Section can take from 4 to 6 months for the articles to be reviewed. The journal has an extensive author support system and it has recently introduced a paid expedited review process. The journal also mentions the average time for processing the manuscript under different submission systems - regular submission and expedited review.
Strengths of the journal: The journal has an online first facility in which the accepted manuscripts may be published on the website before being included in a regular issue of the journal. This cuts down the time between their acceptance and the publication. The journal is indexed in many databases, though not in PubMed. The editorial board should now take steps to index the journal in PubMed. The journal has a system of notifying readers through e-mail when a new issue is released. Also, the articles are available in both the HTML and the PDF formats. I especially like the new and colorful page format of the journal. Also, the access statistics of the articles are available. The prepublication and the manuscript tracking system are also helpful for the authors.
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Overall, the publishing process with JCDR has been smooth, quick and relatively hassle free and I can recommend other authors to consider the journal as an outlet for their work."



Dr. P. Ravi Shankar
KIST Medical College, P.O. Box 14142, Kathmandu, Nepal.
E-mail: ravi.dr.shankar@gmail.com
On April 2011
Anuradha

Dear team JCDR, I would like to thank you for the very professional and polite service provided by everyone at JCDR. While i have been in the field of writing and editing for sometime, this has been my first attempt in publishing a scientific paper.Thank you for hand-holding me through the process.


Dr. Anuradha
E-mail: anuradha2nittur@gmail.com
On Jan 2020

Important Notice

Original article / research
Year : 2022 | Month : August | Volume : 16 | Issue : 8 | Page : CC01 - CC04 Full Version

Effect of Stress on Heart Rate Variability in Medical Students: A Cross-sectional Study


Published: August 1, 2022 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2022/53713.16678
Vijaya Y Vageesh, T Bharath

1. Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, JSS Medical College, JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Mysuru, Karnataka, India. 2. Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Sapthagiri Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Correspondence Address :
Dr. T Bharath,
Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Sapthagiri Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, #15, Chikkasandra, Hesaraghatta Main Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
E-mail: drbharath.t@gmail.com

Abstract

Introduction: Medical education can impose significant psychological stress on undergraduate students. A considerable degree of psychological morbidity has been reported among medical students ranging from stress, interpersonal problems, and suicidal ideation to psychiatric disorders and they tend to have greater psychological distress than the general population. Stress is one of the factors known to cause variation in heart rate variability. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a proven reliable non invasive marker of cardiovascular health and has been used in cardiovascular risk stratification.

Aim: To study the effect of stress on heart rate variability in medical students.

Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology at JSS Medical College, Mysuru, Karnataka, India, from December 2017 to February 2018. Total 58 healthy first-year MBBS medical students aged between 18-25 years with normal Body Mass Index (BMI) were included in the study. The Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ), a validated instrument to identify sources of stress in medical students was used to assess the level of stress. AD Instruments PowerLab (Data Acquisition System) was used to record the frequency and time domain analysis of HRV from the limb leads. Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to assess the association between stress domains and HRV domains, using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0.

Results: Most of the medical students had mild to moderate degrees of stress in all the domains of the MSSQ. There was no statistically significant (p-value>0.05) association found between domains of stress with the time and frequency domains of the HRV.

Conclusion: Though it was found that medical students were exposed to significant stressors during their medical training, the stress was of mild to a moderate degree which had no significant effect on HRV.

Keywords

Medical student stressor questionnaire, Stressors, Sympathovagal balance

Stress is one of the integral part of the present competitive world. It is present in day to day life of an individual be it academic, household, job related or interpersonal. Medical education can impose stress on an individual who has just entered the medical school with ocean of syllabus to learn, adjusting to the new environment, making new friends and so on. Stress can be a double edge sword with mild degree of stress required to improve the performance of the individual, but as the stress level increases it causes distress thereby reducing the performance of the individual (1),(2),(3),(4). So it is imperative for an individual to cope up with stress and to manage it appropriately to lead a healthy life.

Increased stress is known to cause health problems and studies have shown that increased stress level can lead to development of non communicable diseases like diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, obesity among others (5). Stress can also take a toll on mental health thereby predisposing an individual to develop depression, mental fatigue, suicidal ideation and other mental disorders (6),(7),(8). Stress is an inevitable part of medical education as medical students have to cope up with humongous academics, interpersonal relation, social related, group activities, desire driven activities, teaching and learning related stressors.

Stress is known to impact autonomic balance. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is one of the validated measures to know about the sympathovagal balance (9). Heart rate variability is the measure of changes in time that happens between successive heart beats. The time is measured in milliseconds (ms) and called as RR interval or interbeat interval (10). The HRV reflects the heart brain interactions and the dynamic variability of the autonomic nervous system. Time domain indices of HRV measure the inter beat interval variability. Frequency domain indices mainly considers the power which is the signal energy found within a frequency band. This makes the power spectral analsysis a quantitative marker of autonomic function of the heart (10). The present study was undertaken to assess the association between stress and heart rate variability in medical students with the hypothesis that stress affects the sympathovagal balance of the human body. This study was a part of a larger project carried out in the Department of Physiology of the institute (4).

Material and Methods

The cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology at JSS Medical College, Mysuru, Karnataka, India, from December 2017 to February 2018. Written informed consent was obtained from all the participants. The study was approved by Institutional Ethical Committee (JSSMC/IEC/04/4295/2016-17).

Inclusion criteria: First year MBBS students who were aged between 18-25 years with normal Body Mass Index (BMI) (18.5-22.9 kg/m2#sus#) were included in the study.

Exclusion criteria: The students who were smokers, alcoholics, regular exercisers, on any drugs and subjects with mental illness, co-morbidities were excluded from the study.

Convenient sampling technique was used. Body mass index was measured in 200 students and history was taken with baseline recording of Blood Pressure (BP) and only subjects with normal BP were included. The students who did not satisfy inclusion criteria were excluded from the study. Hence the final sample size was 58. Only the first-year students were considered because they have entered a new arena of medical education which is quite different from the school education and can cause a lot of stress; as time passes the students get accustomed to medical education and the stress level may decrease.

Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ)

To assess the stress level in medical students, a validated instrument, the Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) which is a freely available questionnaire, was used (11). The questionnaire is available in English and was administered in the same language. Based on literature available, the items of MSSQ were designed and grouped into six main domains and distribution out of total 40 questions were as following (11):

1. Stress domain 1: Academic Related Stressor (ARS)- 13 questions
2. Stress domain 2: Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Related Stressor (IRS)- 7 questions
3. Stress domain 3: Teaching and Learning Related Stressor (TLRS)- 7 questions
4. Stress domain 4: Social Related Stressor (SRS)- 6 questions
5. Stress domain 5: Drive and Desire Related Stressor (DRS)- 3 questions
6. Stress domain 6: Group Activities Related Stressor (GARS)- 4 questions

Subjects were asked to rate each source by choosing from five responses:

• “causing no stress at all’’,
• “causing mild stress’’,
• “causing moderate stress’’,
• “causing high stress’’ and
• “causing severe stress’’

The scoring method assigns marks from 0 to 4 to each of the responses respectively.

• Score of 0-1 was considered as mild stress,
• 1.01-2 was considered as moderate stress,
• 2.01-3 was considered as high stress and
• 3.01-4 was considered as severe stress.

AD Instruments PowerLab (Data Acquisition System) was used to record the frequency and time domain analysis of HRV from the limb leads. The HRV analysis was done as per the guidelines issued by Task force of The European Society of Cardiology and The North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (12),(13). HRV analysis was done only once.

• Time domain indices in milliseconds includes SDNN- Standard Deviation of the all NN interval,
• rMSSD- square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of differences between adjacent NN interval,
• pNN50(%)- percentage of difference between adjacent NN intervals that are greater than 50 ms.
• Frequency domain indices includes:
Low Frequency (LF) Absolute Values (AV) in ms2#sus#
High Frequency (HF)- AV in ms2#sus#
LF/HF (Low Frequency/ High Frequency) ratio

Statistical Analysis

Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to know the association between stress domains and HRV domains, using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0. A p-value less than 0.05 in each of the domains was considered as significant.

Results

The medical students had mild to moderate degree of stress in all the six domains as assessed using MSSQ. Frequency domain parameters LF and HF were reduced whereas LF/HF ratio was within normal range. Time domain parameters SDNN was reduced but RMSSD, pNN50 were within normal range. Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to assess the association between stress domains and HRV parameters. The ARS caused moderate degree of stress in maximum number (32) students and there was no significant association between HRV parameter and ARS (p-value>0.05) (Table/Fig 1).

The IRS also caused moderate degree of stress in maximum number (n=27) of students but was not significantly (p-value>0.05) associated with HRV parameters (Table/Fig 2). The TLRS also caused moderate degree of stress in maximum number (n=25) of students but was not significantly (p-value>0.05) associated between HRV parameter and TLRS (Table/Fig 3). The SRS also caused moderate degree of stress in maximum number (n=30) of students but was not significantly (p-value>0.05) associated between HRV parameters (Table/Fig 4). The DRS caused mild degree of stress in maximum number of students and there was no significant association with HRV parameters (p-value>0.05) (Table/Fig 5). The GARS also caused moderate degree of stress in maximum number (24) of students but was not significantly (p-value>0.05) associated between HRV parameters (Table/Fig 6).

Discussion

The present study was done to assess the association between stress and HRV parameters. In the present study, medical students had mild to moderate degree of stress in all the six domains. There are studies which show that medical students suffer from moderate to severe degree of stress (14),(15),(16). In all these studies conducted previously (14),(15),(16), the questionnaire used was perceived stress scale, which is a stress scale for assessing stress in general population and not specific to medical students. In the present study the stress level were low because the instrument used to assess stress was specifically designed and validated for medical students. The other reasons could be effective mentoring and student support provided in the college. Apart from this the students are also trained in life skills so that they can manage day to day stressors better. Additionally different individuals may respond to stressors in a varied way, therefore perceived stress may be low in the subjects of the present study.

The Frequency domain parameters of HRV like LF and HF were reduced whereas LF/HF ratio was within normal range, which means there is no sympathovagal imbalance. Time domain parameters SDNN was reduced which indicates that sympathetic tone is reduced, but RMSSD, pNN50 were within normal range which indicates that parasympathetic tone was normal. The HRV parameters were within normal range in the present study as subjects with normal BMI were recruited since higher BMI itself may cause increase sympathetic tone thereby altering HRV.

There was no significant association between the stress domains and HRV domains because the sampling technique used was convenient sampling and there were not many students in high and severe category in any of the stress domains. A study has shown that there is significant association between stress domain and HRV domains, but in that study the stress level of the individual was categorized as mild, moderate, high or severe based on the highest grade of stress in any one of the domains of the MSSQ (12). But in the present study individual domains of stress were not associated with the HRV parameters.

Limitation(s)

In the present study 58 subjects were included and assessed for stress levels. Studies with larger sample size across institutions needs to be done to generalize the results to the target population.

Conclusion

Though medical students are exposed to significant stressors like change in academics, peers, desires, interpersonal and intrapersonal relationship during their medical training, these stressors cause little stress which is of mild to moderate degree and this level of stress hasno significant effect on HRV.

References

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Camm AJ, Malik M, Bigger JT, Breithardt G, Cerutti S, Cohen RJ, et al. Heart rate variability: Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Task force of the european society of cardiology and the north american society of pacing and electrophysiology. Circulation. 1996;93(5):1043-65.
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Shah M, Hasan S, Malik S, Sreeramareddy CT. Perceived stress, sources and severity of stress among medical undergraduates in a Pakistani medical school. BMC Med Educ. 2010;10(1):01-08. [crossref] [PubMed]
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Chilukuri H, Bachali S, Naidu JN, Basha AS, Selvam VS. Perceived stress amongst medical and dental students. AP J Psychol Med. 2012;13(2):104-07.
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DOI and Others

DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2022/53713.16678

Date of Submission: Jan 04, 2022
Date of Peer Review: Jan 29, 2022
Date of Acceptance: Apr 09, 2022
Date of Publishing: Aug 01, 2022

AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? Yes
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? Yes
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. NA

PLAGIARISM CHECKING METHODS:
• Plagiarism X-checker: Jan 12, 2022
• Manual Googling: Jan 19, 2022
• iThenticate Software: Apr 02, 2022 (15%)

ETYMOLOGY: Author Origin

JCDR is now Monthly and more widely Indexed .
  • Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science, thomsonreuters)
  • Index Copernicus ICV 2017: 134.54
  • Academic Search Complete Database
  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
  • Embase
  • EBSCOhost
  • Google Scholar
  • HINARI Access to Research in Health Programme
  • Indian Science Abstracts (ISA)
  • Journal seek Database
  • Google
  • Popline (reproductive health literature)
  • www.omnimedicalsearch.com