Aims: Students are one of the main elements effective on education quality. Investigating clinical training stress, regardless prior stress and other effective factors on how to deal with stress, would be incomplete. This study aimed to investigate the association between life events stress and clinical training stress, self-efficacy, social support, stress coping strategies and academic performance of midwifery students.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 155 midwifery students of Kazeroon Islamic Azad University in two consecutive 2011 and 2012 years. The instrument was prepared using AkhavanAkbari’s clinical instruction stress, Sherer’s general self-efficiency, Sarason’s social support and Andler and Parker’s stress coping strategies and Holmes and Rahe’s life events stress questionnaires. The clinical and academic performance criteria were comprehensive test score and difference between Diploma and Bachelor mean. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20 software using T-independent test and Spearman correlation coefficients.

Findings: The students’ clinical teaching stress score mean was moderate. Clinical training stress and life event stress, dealing with stress and avoidance and emotional coping subgroups showed a significant and positive correlation. The correlation between clinical experience and academic performance clinical performance was positive and significant.

Conclusion: The good students’ self-efficacy, their access to adequate social support with the higher level of satisfaction and the more utilization of problem-solving coping strategy cause students with high stress history understand the clinical training stress moderately so this stress does not change their clinical and educational performance.