Association of Perceived Stress and Gastrointestinal Symptoms in College Students: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Stress and anxiety are common entities in college students, and only a handful of students can handle these stressors appropriately, while others may show physical signs and symptoms. The main purpose of this systematic review was to examine the association between perceived stress and gastrointestinal symptoms. A detailed search was conducted using five databases: PubMed, Research Gate, Science Direct, American Journal of Gastroenterology, and Google scholar. Ten papers were finalized after the application of various inclusion and exclusion criteria. The Newcastle Ottawa scale was used to evaluate the quality of the included articles as all the included articles were cross-sectional studies. The systematic review of these finalized articles found that most studies revealed the prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms in college students and were linked to perceived stress.