Abstract
Medicine is one of the most difficult academic course that faces many psychological challenges. A high level of self-esteem is needed to cope with such challenges, and religiosity is seen as one of the approaches to increase one’s self esteem especially among Muslim medical students. This study aims to measure the level of self esteem among medical students and its association with religiosity. This online cross-sectional study was conducted among 178 International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Kuantan medical students using validated 10-items IIUM Religiosity Scale (IIUMReIS), and 10-items Rosenberg Self esteem Scale (RSES). Descriptive statistics was used to measure the level of self esteem while chi-square, Mann-Whitney U test, Spearman’s correlation, univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to explore the association between self esteem with the predictors. More than half of the students (58.5%) have a high level of self esteem. They scored an average of 35 (IQR = 6) in terms of religiosity. Those with higher religiosity were predicted to have significantly high self esteem (r = 0.345). Other significant factor includes, frequency of voluntary prayer where daily practice has 0.3 lower odds of having low self esteem. (95% CI = 0.11, 0.85, p = 0.05) Majority of the students have a high level of self esteem. Implications suggest the role of religiosity and the impact of voluntary prayer. Early and consistent strengthening of self esteem via motivational, spiritual and religious programs may be advisable.
Highlights
Self-esteem is defined as a favourable or unfavourable attitude about oneself and overall evaluation of one’s own thoughts and feelings toward oneself (Rosenberg, 1965)
Further analysis via logistic regression models revealed that frequency of supererogatory prayer was significantly associated with self-esteem
Weekly supererogatory prayer decreased the risk of low self-esteem as much as 24% and only 5% if practised monthly. (95% Confidence interval (CI) = (0.08, 0.71) and (95% CI = (0.01, 0.31)
Summary
Self-esteem is defined as a favourable or unfavourable attitude about oneself and overall evaluation of one’s own thoughts and feelings toward oneself (Rosenberg, 1965). Self-esteem plays a fundamental role in mental and psychological well-being (Abdel-Khalek, 2016) as well as a critical factor to determine an individual’s success in social adjustment (Park & Park, 2019). According to Boyd et al (2014) it is positively related to mental health, social adaptation, and life’s quality. Medicine in particular is a challenging academic course that faces many psychological hardships along its course. Studies had shown that medical students faces a high level of stress and anxiety (Yusoff et al, 2010; Moreira de Sousa et al, 2018; Gan & Yuen Ling, 2019) as compared with other academic courses, and high level of self-esteem is needed for students to cope with such psychological demand AbdelKhalek, 2016; Sa et al, 2019)
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