A comparative study to assess hypochondrial attitude among nursing and other department students of Eternal University Baru Sahib, Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Background: Hypochondrial attitude is a cognitive and thought process in which person lives with the fear that they have some kind of serious illness but undiagnosed condition. The aim of this study was to examine the sample of students in order to assess and compare the degree of hypochondrial attitude among nursing and other department student. Methods: Total sample size was 310, among them 155 nursing student and 155 other department students were recruited through a convenient sampling technique. Online survey was employed using socio-demographical questionnaire and Whiteley index. Results: Among all participants, hypochondrial attitude prevalence is higher among nursing students then other department students. In the present study, mild (55% in nursing students while 65% in other department students), moderate (43% in nursing students while 34% in other department students) and severe (2% in nursing student and 1% in other department students) hypochondrial attitude was assessed. Furthermore, nursing students are significantly associated with hypochondrial attitude. The highly significant association was assessed among age (0.000), academic year (0.000), diagnose with serious illness (0.000) and the significant once was the number of sibling (0.13), personality (0.015), visit to physician (0.005) and fear of getting covid 19 during pandemic (0.002), there was no significant association between demographic variable and hypochondrial attitude in other department students i.e., p<0.01. Conclusions: The conclusion of this study shows that there is higher prevalence of hypochondrial attitude among nursing students. At last it was suggested that counseling and support services are necessary for nursing students.