As competition and fear of parental reaction give students stress-related health problems in exam season, docs advise better familial support
As competition and fear of parental reaction give students stress-related health problems in exam season, docs advise better familial supportu00a0
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As the board exams are underway, doctors in the city are seeing a host of anxious students dropping into their clinics with stress-related problems. In their zeal to outdo their peers and live up to the expectations of parents, students appearing for their exams, especially those who are in the Std X or Std XII, are giving doctors cause for worry. While there are the milder complaints like loss of appetite or a bit of insomnia, doctors say their main worry is change in blood pressure or heart rate because of extreme anxiety as this can lead to serious long-term effects.
Paediatrician Dr Sharad Agharkhedkar, who is president of the Indian Medical Association, Pune chapter, said that he had treated students who had fluctuations in blood pressure. "Cases of rise in blood pressure during exams are due to functional hypertension that goes away after exams. But blood pressure fluctuations at such a young age aren't a good thing. Stress and performance pressure lead to anxiety disorders," he said.
Paediatrician Dr Jayant Navrange said that he had been consulting a lot of students for mild problems like loss of appetite or insomnia. "In most of the students I have checked and counselled, the children have stress as they are scared of family reactions. Even if they have done well, they aren't confident enough because of competition and comparison by parents. Most of the students complained of loss of appetite or sleeplessness, but this is going to affect them badly as they will lose their concentration and in such cases we ask families to intervene as medicines can only help to a certain extent," he said.
Students have even suffered nervous breakdowns, said physicians. Physician Dr Vivek Billampelly, whose daughter is appearing for Std X exams, said he has seen cases of students blanking out in exams.
"I have seen four to five cases where students missed out a lot of precious time as they went completely blank during the first hour or two of the paper. These students suffered a nervous breakdown and needed counselling by a doctor on how to overcome their fear," he said. "But in most cases, problems have been mild, like insomnia or behavioural problems like extreme irritability. But even if these problems are mild, parents need to be alert and look out for signs of these before the problem aggravates."
