Impacts of Stress Coping Approaches on Covid-19 Anxiety: A Sample of Turkish Medical School Students

We aimed to assess Covid-19 anxiety among Turkish medical school students. More specifically, we examined the association between the participants’ age, gender, grades, stress coping approaches and Covid-19 anxiety using a quantitative design. The participants were 875 (493 female and 480 male students) medical school students between 19 and 26 years old. The participants completed Ways of Coping Inventory and Coronavirus Anxiety Scale. It was observed that university students in the schools of medicine used stress coping approaches such as searching for social support and self-confident. ANOVA analyses revealed that female medical school students had higher mean scores for the search for social support, optimistic, submissive, and helpless approaches, while male medical school students had higher scores for self-confident approach. Post hoc analysis indicated that the first-grade medical school students used self-confident stress coping approach more often than the higher-grade medical school students. We established that 21 years and older medical school students used submissive stress coping approach more often than younger students. Hierarchical regression revealed that gender female, submissive and helpless approaches explained 11% of the variance in Coronavirus anxiety.  

Knowledge Levels of Medical Faculty Students and Residents about Ionizing Radiation

This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge levels of medical school students and residents about ionising radiation. The study is designed as descriptive research, and it was conducted with 369 medical school students and residents. A survey form was used in the research. A Chi-square test was used to compare categorical variables. In the study, 369 people were reached within the scope of the research. A total of 60.7% of the research participants were clinical medicine students (4th, 5th, 6th grade) and 39.3% were residents. A total of 42.0% of the participants of the study were male, 58.0% were women. It was found that 17.9% of the clinical medical students and 18.6% of the residents had sufficient knowledge of ionising radiation (p=0.002). A total of 87.0% of the participants in the study answered correctly that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) does not contain radiation and 93.5% answered correctly that ultrasonography (USG) does not contain radiation. 74.8% of the participants stated that having knowledge about ionising radiation would contribute to “protecting sensitive groups from ionising radiation” in medical practice. This ratio is 77.2% in clinical medicine students and 71.0% in residents. The study found that knowledge levels of medical faculty students and residents about ionising radiation were insufficient. Medical students and residents are recommended to be trained on radiation and the radiological requests of residents to be evaluated.

Mental health of Turkish medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The coronavirus disease emerged in 2019, spread in Turkey as all over the world rapidly. In this process, young people began to experience some mental problems due to the fear of contagion, as well as some changes in their lifestyles. Aims: In this study it is aimed to investigate anxiety and depression levels of medical school students and the factors associated with these mental problems. Method: The forms were sent over the internet to the officials responsible for medical education at universities in various regions of Turkey. A total of 2,778 medical faculty students were included in the study. Students were asked to fill out the sociodemographic data form, the Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 (PHQ-9), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) Test. Results: Students’ 67.3% were female and 31.7% were male. About 90.2% of the students in the PHQ-9 scale had depressive symptoms in the major depressive disorder (MDD) dimension, and 44.5% in the GAD-7 scale had moderate/severe anxiety symptoms. Gender, being a preclinical student, history of psychiatric treatment in the past, currently receiving psychiatric treatment, death of someone due to pandemic, economic and health situation, perception of mental health were found associated with MDD and Moderate/Severe Anxiety symptoms. Students with Anxiety and MDD reported significantly more anxiety about contamination and negative beliefs about precautions’ sufficiency. Conclusions: It was determined that medical school students in our country showed anxiety and depression at a remarkable level during the pandemic. Examining the underlying causes of these high rates will be beneficial in terms of taking precautions during the long-term pandemic. In literature, there are a limited number of studies on this subject in our country, we believe that our study will be useful in future studies to determine the underlying causes of mental illnesses and what can be done to help students.

Designing Actionable Solutions and Curriculum for Pain Disparities Education

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) require medical schools to teach their students how to recognize and work towards eliminating health disparities. However, time constraints and a dearth of guidance for educators in teaching pain disparities curricula, pose significant challenges. Herein, we describe successes and lessons learned after designing, implementing, and evaluating an innovative pain disparities curriculum that was embedded in a longitudinal health equity curriculum for third year medical school students at an academic institution. Although the curriculum was developed for medical school students, the concepts may be broadly applicable to other training settings such as residency and fellowship programs.

Response to Vaccination against Mumps in Medical Students: Two Doses Are Needed

Mumps is a vaccine-preventable infectious disease diffuse worldwide. The implementation of mumps vaccination reduced largely the spread of infection. On 11,327 Medical School students the prevalence of mumps positive antibodies was evaluated according to dose/doses of vaccine, year of birth and sex. Compliance to mumps vaccine was low in students born before 1990 but increased consistently after this year, above all compliance to two doses, due to the implementation of the vaccine offer. Positivity of mumps antibodies is significantly (p < 0.0001) lower in students vaccinated once (71.2%) compared to those vaccinated twice (85.4%). In addition, students born after 1995, largely vaccinated twice, showed a seropositivity near to 90%. Further, females had a significantly (p < 0.0001) higher proportion of positive antibodies after vaccination than males, both one (74.6% vs. 64.7%) and two doses (86.8% vs. 82.9%). Finally, seropositivity after two vaccine doses remains high (86.1%) even 15 years after the second dose. In conclusion, the research highlighted that vaccination against mumps reaches a good level of coverage only after two doses of vaccine persisting at high levels over 15 years and induces a more significant response in females.