ANXIETY AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION AMONG PUPILS OF A STATE-OWNED MEDICAL INSTITUTION: A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

摘要

Medical education is the preference among the Pakistani students and families,despite the awareness that medical education is hectic due to massive knowledge to be acquiredand multiple examinations to be cleared. Therefore, once entered to a medical college, onlythose students can pass with good grades, attain the degree, and enter in the field as qualifieddoctors who indulge in serious studious activities. Thus, the medical colleges trigger a lot ofstress and anxiety for the students which eventually influences their emotions and emotionrelated abilities. Objectives: To explore the relationship of anxiety and emotional regulationamong undergraduate medical students of Federal Medical and Dental College. Study Design:Descriptive research design. Setting: Federal Medical and Dental College, Islamabad. Period: 6months from July 2015 to December 2015. Method: A sample comprising 300 medical studentswas selected from Federal Medical and Dental College. Consensus sampling was used for datacollection. Relationship of anxiety and emotional regulation was analyzed using Beck AnxietyInventory by Aaron Beck (BAI) (1988), Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John,2003). Results: The results show that there exists a substantial positive relationship betweenanxiety, expressive suppression and emotion regulation and noteworthy negative associationbetween anxiety and cognitive reappraisal. Anxiety and emotional regulation are significantlyrelated with gender. Females have higher anxiety as compared to males and female medicalstudents use more expressive suppression emotion regulation strategy as compared to malemedical students. Conclusion: Medical students have higher levels of anxiety which calls forappropriate measures so that their anxiety levels may be reduced and students may learnhealthy emotional regulation to lead a better adjusted life.