Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
International Journal of Social Psychiatry
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bunevicius, A.
Right arrow Articles by Bunevicius, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Bunevicius, A.
Right arrow Articles by Bunevicius, R.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Medical Students and in Humanities Students: Relationship With Big-Five Personality Dimensions and Vulnerability To Stress

Adomas Bunevicius

Faculty of Medicine, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania, Institute of the Psychophysiology and Rehabilitation of the Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania, a.bunevicius{at}yahoo.com

Arune Katkute

Faculty of Medicine, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Robertas Bunevicius

Institute of the Psychophysiology and Rehabilitation, Kaunas University of Medicine, Lithuania

Aims: To evaluate the prevalence of anxiety and depression in medical students and in humanities students. To assess the relationship between symptoms of anxiety, symptoms of depression and Big-Five personality dimensions and vulnerability to stress in medical students.

Methods: Randomly selected 338 medical students and 73 humanities students were evaluated for symptoms of anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), for Big-Five personality dimensions using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and for vulnerability to stress using the Stress Vulnerability Scale (SVS).

Results: Symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression were prevalent in medical students (43% and 14%, respectively) and in humanities students (52% and 12%, respectively). In medical students the score on the HADS anxiety subscale and the score on the HADS depression subscale correlated negatively with the score on the TIPI Emotional Stability scale (r = —0.39, p < 0.01 and r = —0.2, p < 0.01, respectively) and correlated positively with the score on the SVS (r = 0.38, p < 0.01 and r = 0.44, p < 0.01, respectively).

Conclusions: Symptoms of anxiety and depression are prevalent in medical students and in humanities students. Severity of symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression in medical students is negatively related to emotional stability and positively related to stress vulnerability.

Key Words: depression • anxiety • personality dimensions • vulnerability to stress • medical students • humanities students

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 54, No. 6, 494-501 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0020764008090843
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?