ANXIETY AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION;

ANXIETY AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION AMONG PUPILS OF A STATE-OWNED MEDICAL INSTITUTION: A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Medical education is the preference among the Pakistani students and families, despite the awareness that medical education is hectic due to massive knowledge to be acquired and multiple examinations to be cleared. Therefore, once entered to a medical college, only those students can pass with good grades, attain the degree, and enter in the field as qualified doctors who indulge in serious studious activities. Thus, the medical colleges trigger a lot of stress and anxiety for the students which eventually influences their emotions and emotion related abilities. Objectives: To explore the relationship of anxiety and emotional regulation among undergraduate medical students of Federal Medical and Dental College. Study Design: Descriptive research design. Setting:  Federal Medical and Dental College, Islamabad. Period:  6 months. Method: A sample comprising 300 medical students was selected from Federal Medical and Dental College. Consensus sampling was used for data collection. Relationship of anxiety and emotional regulation was analyzed using Beck Anxiety Inventory by Aaron Beck (BAI) (1988), Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003). Results: The results show that there exists a substantial positive relationship between anxiety, expressive suppression and emotion regulation and noteworthy negative association between anxiety and cognitive reappraisal. Anxiety and emotional regulation are significantly related with gender. Females have higher anxiety as compared to males and female medical students use more expressive suppression emotion regulation strategy as compared to male medical students. Conclusion: Medical students have higher levels of anxiety which calls for appropriate measures so that their anxiety levels may be reduced and students may learn healthy emotional regulation to lead a better adjusted life.