Stress is an important factor contributing to depressive illness that is increasingly common in society due to factors like family, work, and school. The document discusses developing a computerized tool to measure perceived stress. The goal is to create a tool that can be incorporated into clinical practice to better assess stress levels in individuals. Currently, the authors are studying stress and its effects on performance in medical students. They will identify the key dimensions of perceived stress and then develop a computer application to measure an individual's perception of stress.

1. Developing and evaluating a computerized tool for
measuring perceived stress
Dalal Ben Loubir, Medical Informatics Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Casablanca,
Morocco.
Professor Mohammed Bennani Othmani, Medical Informatics Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine and
Pharmacy of Casablanca, Morocco.
Stress is a component among others of depressive illness that take place more and more in our
society(family, work, school…), in addition, it is the subject of several research for decades.
Stress is related to coping abilities; it may bring changes on individual’s physical and mental
well-being.
This work is a part of a thesis, which will end in 2013. Our main aim is to create a
homogenization between computing and neurological fields. From this work we try to
produce an evaluative ICT tool that could be incorporated as part of clinical practice.
The main goal of this study is to develop and evaluate an application that will support the
measure of perceived stress in individuals.
Currently, we are working on a project which covers the study of stress and performance in
order to better assess stress response in medical students who face the charge of the program
and exam preparation.
In a second step, we will explore the concept of perceived stress to identify the dimensions of
the concept.
In the last step, we will develop a computer application for measuring the perception of stress
in individuals.
Keywords: Stress, Stress Perception, Computerized Tool