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OBJECTIVE: To understand various sources of stress and assess coping strategies among medical students of Al-Nafees Medical College, Islamabad. STUDY DESIGN: A descriptive cross sectional observational study. PLACE AND DURATION: The survey was carried out on the MBBS students of Al-Nafees Medical College Islamabad from 11th May, 2015 to 3rd July, 2015. METHODOLOGY: The undergraduate MBBS students of Al-Nafees Medical College were approached in the study. The socio- demographic determinants included the class of the participants, their age, gender, country of birth, their degree before MBBS and parents' educational level. The objectives of the study intended to determine the prevalence of stress among medical students, to identify various stressors experienced by undergraduate medical students during their graduation and assessing medical students' coping strategies for various stressors during their undergraduate medical education. The structured questionnaire comprised on closed-ended questions based on the specified objectives mentioned above. RESULTS: The response rate came out to be 91%. The prevalence of distressed students came out to be 52.5%. Regarding the distribution of stressors according to students' responses, it was found that the top stressor considered by majority of the students was having too much course content to be learnt. Students also considered having shortage of time, difficulty in retaining course content and taking frequent examination as potent stressors. The majority of the students (above 80%) use religion as a coping response while about 55% of the students approach their parents for the use of emotional support when stressed. CONCLUSION: The study revealed that the prevalence of the stress is quite high amongst the medical students. The top stressors in our cohort were mostly related to academic issues and poor time management skills. Majority of the students cope with stress using religion while the other coping strategy used by distressed students includes self-blame, venting of emotions through anger and frustration and distracting themselves by logging on to facebook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]