Introduction: academic demands behave like stressors leading to student stress, an experience is shown.
Objective: to evaluate the possible association between levels of academic stress and learning results in students of the second academic year of medicine at Cuenca Catholic University - Azogues Venue.
Methods: a cross-sectional study was carried out involving 72 students of both genders. The SISCO inventory was applied to determine academic stress levels. Normal or low learning performance was established by the final average of points of the total number of subjects. Differences and associations between variables were determined by means of the proportions test and X2, respectively.
Results: there were no significant differences between genders in learning performance or levels of academic stress. High levels of stress significantly predominated among the total number of students with respect to low level and in the female gender. Levels of academic stress and learning performance were not associated with gender. Students with normal learning performance were found in higher percentages, while those with high levels of academic stress had significantly higher percentages (p ≤ 0.05), who showed low learning performance. Stress levels were significantly associated with learning performance.
Conclusions: high levels of academic stress were found among the students participating in this study, which evidenced a negative influence on their learning performance
