Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Medical and health sciences students may experience substantial stress because of demanding curricula, individual personality differences, and changing academic requirements across years of study. This study estimated the prevalence of perceived stress and examined its relationship with Big Five personality traits among students across academic years in African and Arab countries. In this multinational cross-sectional study, undergraduate medical and health sciences students from universities in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Nigeria completed the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and a 26-item short form of the Big Five Inventory (BFI). A total of 1,753 students participated. The mean PSS-10 score was 21.82 ± 6.44; 67.3% of participants reported moderate stress, 23.4% reported high stress, and 9.2% reported low stress. Agreeableness was the most common dominant personality trait (40.2%), whereas neuroticism was the sole dominant trait in 6.4% of participants. Dominant personality trait was significantly associated with stress category (p < 0.001); 60.2% of students with dominant neuroticism were in the high-stress category. Stress scores correlated positively with neuroticism (r = 0.528, p < 0.001) and negatively with extraversion (r = -0.276), openness (r = -0.100), and conscientiousness (r = -0.122) (all p < 0.001). In the adjusted ordinal regression model, female sex and neuroticism were associated with higher stress categories, whereas extraversion and conscientiousness were inversely associated. Academic year, social media use, caffeine intake, and nationality were associated with stress in unadjusted analyses but were not independent predictors after adjustment. Perceived stress was common in this multinational sample, and personality traits showed the strongest independent associations with stress. These findings support targeted, context-sensitive student mental health programs.</p>