Vidya Bhagat

Professionalism perspectives among medical students of a novel medical graduate school in Malaysia

Defining professionalism in this constantly evolving world is not easy. How do you measure degrees of benevolence and compassion? If it is so obvious to our profession, what professionalism is, then why is it so difficult to teach it to medical students and residents? Today’s definition of medical professionalism is evolving – from autonomy to accountability, from expert opinion to evidence-based medicine, and from self-interest to teamwork and shared responsibility. However, medical professionalism is defined as the basis for the trust in the patient–physician relationship, caring and compassion, insight, openness, respect for patient dignity, confidentiality, autonomy, presence, altruism, and those qualities that lead to trust-competence, integrity, honesty, morality, and ethical conduct. The purpose of this study is to explore professionalism in terms of its fundamental elements among medical students of Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA). This was a cross-sectional study carried out on medical students of UniSZA. The study population included preclinical and clinical medical students of UniSZA from Year I to Year V of academic session 2014/2015. The simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample. Data were collected using a validated instrument. The data were then compiled and analyzed using SPSS Version 21. Out of 165 questionnaires distributed randomly among Year I to Year V medical students of UniSZA, 144 returned, giving a response rate of 87%. Among the study participants, 38% (54) and 62% (90) were males and females, respectively. The grand total score was 170.92±19.08. A total of 166.98±20.15 and 173.49±18.09 were the total professionalism score of male and female study participants, respectively, with no statistically significant (P=0.61) differences. This study found almost similar levels of familiarity with all fundamental issues of professionalism with no statistically (P>0.05) significant differences. Medical faculty members should give more effort for the professional development of medical doctor. Henceforth, researchers believe and expect that the country will produce more rational and holistic medical doctors.

Need for Focus on Personality Dimension Impacting Academics of Medical Students

Personality dimensions known to be associated with achievements in individual lives. The present study focuses on neuroticism that is one of the dimension impacting academics of medical students. This dimension is one of the big five factors of Eysenckian personality model. The Eysenckian personality model was developed to assess a specific theoretical model and is still commonly used in educational settings and research. This research study is a useful in developing awareness among the medical students and they can be educated to prevent the effect of neuroticism by using mental health exercises. The sample group is 60 medical Students of year one UniSZA, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. They were selected by convenient sampling technique. The Eysenckian personality inventory was used to find out the extent of neuroticism among the sample group. These neuroticism scores were matched with academic scores to find the association between the two variables. Carl Pearsons correlation coefficient method was carried out to find the significance of their association. There was high prevalence in extent of neuroticism among medical students. Of the 64 subjects 60 were chosen and 4 were excluded because of invalid answer found in the inventory. High score on Eysenckian personality inventory showed higher extent of neuroticism among the sample population. The tabulated neuroticism score and academic scores were statistically analysed to find their association. The results revealed that there were significant correlation neuroticism and academic scores (r=-0.824, p=<0.001). The study result compatible with the hypothetical assumption. There was a significant correlation between academic scores and neuroticism among study sample group. Conclusion: Neuroticism is a one of the personality dimension that has a negative impact on academic performance of medical students. The hypnotized assumption has been proven in the current study.

Assessing Test Anxiety among the First Year Nursing Students’ of University Sultan Zainal Abidin

Introduction:Test anxiety is known to have an impact on students either negatively or positively. It is normal to have exam anxiety that help the students to be prepared them for facing examination, on the other hand it can also distress the students that can have a negative impact on students’ physically, emotionally, cognitively that paves a way to poor performance in the examination. Objective:The purpose of this study is to find the prevalence and levels of test anxiety in the sample population. Methods:The current study sample includes 60 first year nursing students from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Terengganu, Malaysia. Thecross sectional study design was applied and sample population was selected with universal sampling. The data was analysed using SPSS statistics Version 22 (IBM Co., Armonk, NY, USA).The descriptive data analysis was used for the analysis of the prevalence, percentages and mean score. Results:The study results revealed that only 1.7% respondents no anxiety, 36.7% respondents experienced of mild anxiety, more than half 58.3% respondents had moderate anxiety and 3.3% respondents experienced of severe anxiety. Conclusion:Majority of first year nursing students experienced test anxiety. The implications of this study is giving overview of mind-body interventions to get helped to have normal anxiety during their exams; the faculty, lecturer or advisor should find out the main factors contributing test anxiety and also should have some wellness programmes for the students.

Comparing Coping Strategies Practiced and its association with stress among medical Students from a Private and Public Medical University

Introduction: Medical education has been considered highly stressful to medical students. It not only affects medical students’ physical and mental health but chronic stress can impair academic performance, personal and professional development, leading to unsatisfactory patient care. The objective of this study is to compare the coping strategies practiced and its association with stress between medical students from a private and public university. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in a public and private university namely, University Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniZSA) and UCSI University (UCSI) respectively. A total of 245 medical students from UniZSA and 315 medical students from UCSI, from year 1 to year 5 participated in this study. This study was carried out between 2015 till 2016. A universal sampling method was used. A self-administered questionnaires comprising of 3 sections namely sociodemographic information, 12 item validated General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and a 28 item validated Brief Cope Inventory was used in this study. Data entry and analysis were done using SPSS version 20.0 software. Results: The prevalence of stress was higher (42.2%) among UCSI University medical students compared to University Sultan Zainal Abidin medical students (33.1%). The commonly practised coping strategies in both universities were religion, active coping, acceptance, planning, and positive reframing. The negative coping strategies behavioural disengagement and substance abuse were the least practised in both universities. The associated coping strategies with stress were denial (?2 5.740; P<0.05 for UniZSA and ?2 13.31; P<0.001 for UCSI), behavioural disengagement; (?2 19.306; P<0.001 for UniZSA and ?2 7.65; P<0.05 for UCSI) venting (?2 28.776; P<0.001 for UniZSA and ?2 8.56; P<0.05 for UCSI), and self-blame (?2 10.700; P<0.001 for UniZSA and ?2 9.94; P<0.05 for UCSI) in both universities, with an additional associated coping strategy; acceptance (?2 4.277; p<0.05) reported in University Sultan Zainal Abidin. Discussion and conclusion: The stress prevalence was higher among UCSI university students compared to UniZSA medical students. UniZSA medical students practised religion as their highest ranked coping strategy compared to UCSI students who practised active coping. The last 2 ranked coping strategies practised; behavioural disengagement and substance abuse (negative strategies) were similar too. The associated coping strategies with stress were also similar for both universities. Stress management programmes like “Medical Student Well-Being Workshops” should be conducted to further add evidence for the implementation of such interventions for reducing medical student stress.

Social intelligence of parents with autism spectrum disorders impacts their emotional behaviour: A new proposed model for stabilising emotionality of these parents impacting their social intelligence

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may affect all spheres of a childs life. Indeed, parents and siblings also live with emotional instabilities in the family. The experience of parents with ASD child can be distressing since they need to make more adjustments to the demanding need to cope with their life situations. Perhaps, their life is drastically exaggerated with their complexities of life. Particularly, their social life is radically affected. The presence of pervasive and severe deficits in children with ASD isolates these parents from their social life; demanding adjustments to their social environment of parents in their life situations shove them into distress and unstable emotions. Finally, they culminate being shattered in their interpersonal relationship, their family and social life. Indeed, these aspects of distress mask social intelligence of these parents, thus narrow down their focus more on the treatment rather than holistic management of their child. Thus, the management of ASD with these parents of the deficit children to reach their fullest abilities remains doubtful. Therefore, the objectives of this study are as follows: (a) to examine the impact of emotionality on social intelligence of parents blessed with autistic child, (b) to develop awareness regarding social intelligence and its significance among these parents, (c) to propose a new model stabilising emotionality of these parents through developing social adaption skills and (d) to suggest a new model as a guide in the current intervention regimens to ensure the emotional well-being and better social adoption. This study is made based on the keenly examined past evidence with the correlation of emotionality and its impact on social intelligence of the parents with ASD children. The results reveal that the social intelligence is perceived as lowered evidenced by poor social adjustment reflected in social isolation observed in the parents of children with ASD. A new model proposed for stabilising and developing awareness of social intelligence among the parents of ASD children. Integrating this model with the existing treatment paradigm has been suggested to attain the better result. The conclusion is drawn in this study by analysing the fact that considerable improvement in the diagnosed child may not amend the parent and family distress and drastically affect social intelligence. Indeed, the intervention can be more promising with the healthy personality of parents, where their multiple aspects of intelligence are not affected. The new proposed model of intervention can pave the way for further research in this regard.

Study on personality dimension negative emotionality affecting academic achievement among Malaysian medical students studying in Malaysia and overseas

Personality dimension negative emotionality is known to be associated with academic achievement. The present study focuses on the influence of negative emotionality (neuroticism) on the medical students’ academic achievements. The main objective of this study was to ascertain the negative emotionality scores among the first year Malaysian medical students studying in Malaysia and India, further to find out the association between negative emotionality and their academic achievements. The current study sample includes 60 first year Malaysian medical students from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia, and USM-KLE IMP, Belgaum, India. They were selected by convenient sampling technique. The Medico-Psychological questionnaire was used to find out the negative emotionality scores among the students and these scores were compared with academic scores. The data were analyzed using SPSS- 20. Thus, the study result goes with the prediction that there is a significant correlation between academic achievement and negative emotionality. We concluded that negative emotionality has a negative impact on medical student’s academic achievement regardless of the fact whether they study in their own country or overseas.

Emotional maturity of medical students impacting their adult learning skills in a newly established public medical school at the east coast of Malaysian Peninsula

Emotional maturity (EM) is defined as the ability of an individual to respond to situations, control emotions, and behave in an adult manner when dealing with others. EM is associated with adult learning skill, which is an important aspect of professional development as stated in the principles of andragogy. These principles are basically a characteristic feature of adult learning, which is defined as “the entire range of formal, non-formal, and informal learning activities that are undertaken by adults after an initial education and training, which result in the acquisition of new knowledge and skills”. The purpose of this study is to find out the influence of EM on adult learning among Years I and II medical students of Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA). The study population included preclinical medical students of UniSZA from Years I and II of the academic session 2015/2016. The convenient sampling technique was used to select the sample. Data were collected using “EM scale” to evaluate emotional level and adult learning scale to assess the adult learning scores. Out of 120 questionnaires, only six response sheets were not complete and the remaining 114 (95%) were complete. Among the study participants, 23.7% (27) and 76.3% (87) were males and females, respectively. The data were then compiled and analyzed using SPSS Version 22. The Pearson’s correlation method was used to find the significance of their association. The results revealed a significant correlation between EM and adult learning scores (r=0.40, p<0.001). Thus, the study result supports the prediction, and based on the current findings, it can be concluded that there is a significant correlation between EM and adult learning and it has an effect on the students. Medical faculty members should give more emphasis on these aspects to produce health professionals. Henceforward, researchers can expect with optimism that the country will create more rational medical doctors.