Norms Of Prone Plank Testing For Isometric Endurance Assessment In Indian Healthy College Aged Individuals - An Observational Cross Sectional Study

Background:Assessment of Musculoskeletal performance is crucial to analyze for development and improvement of required goals and reducing risk of injuries. Isometric endurance assessment of core, as a part of this analysis is often done with techniques that are valid. Objective: To develop normative percentile separated by genderof hold time of prone plank in Indian college aged individuals, investigate effect of habitual physical activity along with reason for test termination and effect of BMI with hold time of testing. Material And Methods:206 individuals meeting the inclusion criteria performed the prone plank test as long as they can and time was noted. Result:Males produced significantly longer test duration than females and BMI is inversely proportional to hold time. Conclusion:These normative percentiles for abdominal endurance suggest that the abdominal plank test can now be used as an alternative to other abdominal assessments in Indian college students.

How the personalities of medical students at the National University of Singapore differ from those of the local non-medical undergraduate population: a cross-sectional study

INTRODUCTION@#Integrity and willingness to contribute to society are desired traits of medical students beyond academic excellence. We investigated the personality traits of medical students at the National University of Singapore (NUS), who were about to become doctors. Personality traits were compared with a peer population of local university students.@*METHODS@#This study was conducted between October 2013 and December 2014. Year 4 medical students were administered the Revised NEO (Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness) Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), a 240-item Likert scale personality test. Test data was analysed by an institutional psychologist and compared to a separate sample of 377 non-medical students who were peers at the same university taking psychology as a module. Data was collated and analysed.@*RESULTS@#65 Year 4 medical students completed the NEO PI-R personality test. The personalities of Year 4 medical students at NUS differed from their peers in all domains except for openness. NUS medical students generally had less neuroticism, and were more extroverted, agreeable and conscientious than their peers.@*CONCLUSION@#Personality testing of NUS Year 4 medical students showed many of the desired traits of a doctor when compared to their peers at the same university.