. Jitendra Rohilla; . Pinki Tak; . Shubham Jhanwar; . Shazia Hasan; . Rameshwer Gaykwad; . Ravi Yadav; . Pawan Kumar
Volume 10, Issue 12 , December 2020, , Pages 1-6
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: It is common among medical students to falsely attribute bodily sensations/symptomsand holds a belief of having a medical illness with varying level of conviction. We studied ...
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OBJECTIVE: It is common among medical students to falsely attribute bodily sensations/symptomsand holds a belief of having a medical illness with varying level of conviction. We studied and comparedthis condition known as “medical student syndrome", a type of hypochondriasis, between preclinicaland clinical years students.METHODOLOGY: This research was a descriptive study where a total of 100 students wereapproached and were asked to complete a short form of health anxiety inventory (SHAI) whichhas Cronbach’s alpha 0.855. No personal identifiers were included in the study questionnaires. Allstatistical analyses were performed using the SPSS statistical software package (IBM SPSS StatisticsVersion 23, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).RESULTS: The response rate among participants was 88% (42 from preclinical and 48 from clinicalyears of training). Health‑related anxiety (SHAI main section score ≥ 18) was found in 14.77%of students with a higher proportion in preclinical than clinical, 16.66% and 13.04%, respectively.The difference was not significant between the two groups (2 = 0.429 [1], P = 0.766). Studentshaving medical professional in family had lower rate of health‑related anxiety, 2 (1, n = 88) = 0.228,P = 0.633. The association between family or personal history of psychiatry or medical illness was notsignificant with SHAI scores. No relation was noted between current health anxiety (SHAI score) andthe number of visits to the doctor per year before entering the medical course ( = 0.174, P = 0.112).CONCLUSION: Every seventh medical student was found to have health‑related anxiety. It was notaffected by personal and family history of either psychiatric or medical illness.
