ObjectiveTo understand the sources and influencing factors of psychological stress among clinical medical graduate students, and provide support for graduate students' mental health education.

MethodsA self-designed Graduate Psychological Stress Survey Questionnaire was used to investigate and analyze the current status and influencing factors of psychological stress among 462 clinical medical graduate students.

ResultsAmong the 462 medical graduate students, 311 students (67.32%) had stress perception.Medical graduate students who resided in cities and towns had a higher perception of stress than those in rural areas and cities (P < 0.05), and the number of people with stress in the second year and above of doctoral program was higher than that in the first year of doctoral program (P < 0.05).The sources of stress from high to low were as follows: learning, environment, employment, economy, and emotion factors.Among the 311 medical graduate students with stress perception, 230 students (73.95%) felt stress for less than 6 months (short-term) and 81 students (26.05%) felt stress for more than 6 months (long-term).Gender and stress sources including learning, employment, emotion, and economy factors were the influencing factors of perceived stress time (P < 0.05 to P < 0.01).Female students were more prone to long-term stress than male students, and emotion and economy factors of stress sources increased the risk of long-term stress (P < 0.05 to P < 0.01).

ConclusionsThe stress perception rate of medical graduates is relatively high, residence and grade are the influencing factors of stress perception, and gender, emotion and economy factors of stress sources are the influencing factors for the duration of stress.Teaching management departments should pay attention to students in senior grades and those who live in cities and towns, and also to the time periods when pressure is prone to occur such as entering higher education and employment, provide targeted psychological counseling to students, and cooperate with tutors and full-time head teachers to guide medical graduate students in handling the pressures and challenges of work and study actively.