Social anxiety in medical students: A five-year follow-up

Abstract

Introduction Social anxiety is known to interfere with academic attainment. Its negative effects may be more pronounced in medical students, since symptoms may prevent acquisition of necessary skills for appropriate medical examination or procedures. Objectives Medical education in Turkey lasts six years. Clinical internship (6th year) is qualitatively different from other years, since the student assumes the responsibilities similar to those of resident physicians. The transformation involved in this process may have an effect on the social anxiety levels of students. Aims Our aim was to examine how medical education effects social anxiety level, focusing on the change from start to graduation. Methods This was a pooled, time series cross-sectional study. Independent samples of students from same group were assessed for demographic information and social anxiety at three time points: at the first year of medical school ( n =152), at the beginning of 6th year of medical school ( n =153), and at the end of the 6th year ( n =130). Results Social anxiety levels declined from Time 1 (Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale [LSAS]=44.3) to Time 2 (LSAS=30.6), and was stable after that (LSAS at Time 3=30.7). Social anxiety was predicted by having another phobia at Time 1; and by psychiatric history in family at Times 2 and 3. Conclusions Our study shows that medical education probably has a positive effect on social anxiety, but this effect does not continue into the last year, i.e. internship. This is unexpected, because internship requires the acquisition of new social and professional skills. Findings will be discussed in the light of relevant literature.