Anxiety Among Medical Students Studying Pre-Clinical Years of Medical Colleges of Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: To assess the level of anxiety in medical students during their preclinical years. Methods: A total number of 150 students were selected for this cross sectional study from various medical colleges of Karachi, during March to June 2016. The "Westside anxiety scale" questionnaire was used to measure the anxiety. Inferential statistics such as Independent t test and Chi square test were applied to compare the anxiety among male and female students and between the preclinical academic years of undergraduate medical program. Results: Approximately 40% of the medical students were found to have high test anxiety and none of the student was in the comfortable anxiety level zone. A statistically significant mean difference (0.17, p-value=0.02) in the test anxiety score was observed for the academic years but no significant difference (0.04, p-value=0.63) in the anxiety level or score was present between male and female students Conclusion: Our result suggests that anxiety level is high in the first year of preclinical medical sciences as compare to the year after with no discrimination with respect to gender. It is recommended that medical institutes should be aware of the high stress and anxiety among their students and should look for ways to overcome it. The data collected in this study was done on a small scale, therefore, more in depth research is required to explore it further.