Relationships among Cultural Disposition, Morality, and Psychological Health of Medical Students in a Province of Korea

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the relationship among the cultural disposition, morality, and psychological health of medical students to determine how these factors might relate to curriculum planning in medical education. Data was collected from a total of 186 medical students. The questionnaire used included the individual cultural disposition scale, the symptom checklist-90-revised, and the defining issues test. To evaluate individual cultural disposition, we classified students into four categories—low, individual, collective, or mixed cultural disposition—using individualism/collectivism and vertical/horizontal dimensions. We found that those who were younger and in earlier academic years had higher collectivism than individualism and the males had higher individualism than the females. There was no difference in morality or psychological health by the students’ sex, age, or academic year. Horizontal collectivism and moral judgment showed a statistically significant correlation (r=0.150, p