The Hindu : New Delhi News : Board exams' stress sets alarm bell ringing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 25, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Board exams' stress sets alarm bell ringing

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, FEB. 24. With a 17-year-old girl committing suicide here in the Capital on Wednesday reportedly because of the stress associated with the Board examinations, alarm bells are ringing once again for school authorities, parents, psychiatrists and counsellors.

According to a study conducted over three years by the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Max Healthcare, there are high levels of anxiety, excessive parental pressure and significant lifestyle changes among children preparing for their Board examinations.

The study, titled "Board Examinations: A Perspective", has been based on feedback from various Delhi schools. Says consultant psychiatrist Samir Parikh: "Seventy per cent of the students contacted said they were feeling anxiety, 80 per cent said they thought parent pressure to perform was more than it should be, and 90 per cent said they had changed their lifestyle significantly, thereby reducing the leisure hours, reducing sleep and minimising social outings with friend."

The findings also indicated that the pressure to score high marks was causing sleep disturbances among 30 per cent of students, causing then to use more tea and coffee. "In fact, our study indicated that 15 per cent students reported that they were using over the counter medications for headaches and gastric symptoms and as many as 7 per cent students were also taking memory enhancing medications," says Dr. Parikh.

Maintaining that the situation was far from becoming explosive and spiralling out of hand, Dr. P.S. Das, senior consultant psychiatrist at Max Healthcare, says: "The overprotective nature of parents often leads to children being unable to cope with the frustration or even build on their tolerance level. The signs, however, to look for include excessive anxiety, nausea, vomiting, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, depression and irritability; this is where the parents should approach doctors for help. But one needs to always remember that a bit of examination stress and anxiety is actually healthy and even normal."

Dr. Jitendra Nagpal, noted consultant psychiatrist at the Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, says: "We have been noticing the trend among students for long and while there is high level of stress only a small section is prone to take extreme steps. Parents need to be educated about the signs to watch out for and they need to understand that children don't have very well developed stress buster mechanisms which is where they need the guidance and help of their parents and professionals."

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