ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the correlation between levels of stress with level of empathy in all five years of undergraduate medical students of a private medical college in Pakistan. Methods: This descriptive correlation study was conducted at Al Tibri Medical College, Karachi from 15th June to 14th November 2021. Of the 500 students in the medical school, 408 participants filled out the questionnaires through online Google Forms. The student's version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE-S) estimated the self-reported student's empathy levels. At the same time, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was utilized to assess the student's levels of stress. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 22.0 and correlation between empathy and perceived stress was calculated by Pearson's coefficient. A p-value <.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Out of 408 participants, there were 217(53.2%) males, and 191(46.8%) females. The overall mean JSE-S score was 94.60±11.85, and the mean PSS score was 20.20 ±5.70. Empathy scores improved over the basic sciences years and then significantly decreased in the clinical years of medical college with a significant p-value of .019. The highest stress was present in third year medical students with a p-value of <.001. No statistically significant difference was present between empathy and stress levels (r = 0.04, p = .40). Conclusions: The study showed no statistically significant correlation between empathy and stress. Future research is needed to investigate other main factors for the decline in empathy among medical students.
ABSTRACT
Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the knowledge and attitude regarding rotavirus and its vaccination among medical students. Study design: It is a cross sectional study. Methods: Total 324 medical students were selected through stratified random sampling. A structured and validated questionnaire was used. Knowledge and attitude were recorded on scale. Independent t-test and ANVOA was used to determine the difference among gender and academic year. Regression and correlation analysis was done to determine the correlation of knowledge and attitude level with age and academic year of study. p value≤0.05 considered as statistically significant. Results: Mean and standard deviation score of students were 7.88 ± 2.46 on knowledge scale and 4.16 ± 1.23 on attitude scale. Total 87% of students were aware of rotavirus and its vaccination. Both knowledge and attitude level were increased significantly with increasing year of study and age. After adjustment of covariate, Age and academic year of study were the significant factors in determining the scores on knowledge scale. (beta coefficient 0.056 with p-value 0.003 and 0.433 with p-value-0.000). Conclusion: Medical students were appropriate knowledge about the rotavirus but attitude toward rotavirus vaccination is unsatisfactory. It should be a part of the curriculum of not just medical students but all students from high school to undergrad level regardless of the course they are enrolled in and also be advertised by the government.
