Impact of study load on psychophysiological status of high school students

Chuvash State University, Normal and Pathological Physiology Department, 45, Moskowsky Ave., Cheboksary, 428000, Russian Federation

^* Corresponding author: kuper-SV@yandex.ru

Abstract

The study comprised 43 students of the 10^th grade of a comprehensive school with socio-economic bias and lyceum with physical and mathematical bias. Lung capacity was measured using a dryair spirometer. According to the results of spirometry, the functional state of the respiratory system in the majority (76.67 %) of the tested schoolchildren and lyceum students turned out to be below average, which indicates a lag in their physical development. The endurance ratio was calculated in order to characterize the functionality of the cardiovascular system. For the majority of students (97.68 %) it corresponded to the average level, and for the minimum number of students (2.32 %) it was low. The functional state of the body was also assessed by determining the stress level indicator. In 81.82 % of schoolchildren, the stress level at rest had a value corresponding to its increase, and only in 18.18 % of schoolchildren, the stress level indicator was within the normal level. Thus, most tenth graders experienced high levels of stress. In addition, the psycho-emotional state of students was studied by other methods using standard tests: determining the level of personal and reactive (situational) anxiety, assessment of personal well-being, activity and mood. The results of self-assessment of lyceum students and schoolchildren corresponded to good and favorable conditions. Among tenth graders, 8.7 % of lyceum students were characterized by an unfavorable condition. 30.4 % of lyceum students and 55.0 % of schoolchildren with high personal anxiety were identified.