Book Description

This graduate project focused on understanding what levels of stress social work graduate students are experiencing, explore if the social work graduate students' level of perceived stress is related to the development of somatic symptoms, and understand if the amount of hours worked relate to somatic symptoms. The researcher's current hypothesis is that students' perceived stress level will be related to emotional, psychological, and overall physical health and is displayed through somatic symptoms. To demonstrate the effect of the number of hours worked, perceived stress, and life event stressors on somatic symptoms, a multiple hierarchical regression model was used to analyze the relationship. The findings revealed that perceived stress is a stronger predictor of somatic symptoms. Is it not so much events of Masters of Social Work (MSW) students' lives that cause somatic symptoms but how MSW students perceived the life event stressors that is related to somatic symptoms. Limitations to the study included having a small and non-randomized sample size. Further research with a larger and randomized sample size is recommended to support the external validity of the study and apply the results to the general population of MSW graduate students. vi The findings could be helpful in supporting practices that could assist MSW graduate students in reducing their perceived stress and somatic symptoms. As a result this could improve MSW graduate students' emotional, psychological, and overall medical health and may prepare them to provide the best quality service to the community and society.