Measuring Anger in Medical, Dental and Paramedical Post-graduate Students of Sumandeep Vidyapeeth, Vadodara, Gujarat, India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Medical, dental and paramedical post-graduate students are an essential part of multi-specialty teaching institutes where resident doctors are the ones who come in the first contact with the patients. In this study emotion of residents was measured through their anger. Anger has negative impacts on daily life, doctor-patient relationships. Throughout the post-graduation program, students experience stress and burn out.
 Aim: The study was conducted with an aim to measure the level of anger amongst the post-graduate medical, dental and paramedical students at Sumandeep Vidyapeeth University, Vadodara, Gujarat, India.
 Materials and Methods: After obtaining informed and written consent, 349 subjects were assessed through a semi-structured proforma and clinical anger scale to assess the level of anger. It was a cross-sectional single interview study. Enrolment of participants done for the tenure of 1 year from 2013 to 2014 and results assessed. At the end of the study, all CAS (clinical anger scale) parameters compared medical, dental and paramedical groups. Data analyzed through the SPSS v16 software package; One way ANOVA and independent t-test was applied.
 Results: The overall anger was higher among post-graduate students. Post-graduate medical students had higher anger compared to paramedical post-graduate students. Female participants scored significantly lower on clinical anger compared to male participants. Post-graduates doing MD/MS were having significantly higher anger than post-graduates of MDS (p=0.002), MPT (0.000). Married participants scored lower on clinical anger compared to unmarried participants.
 Conclusion: Overall anger is high in medical post-graduate students which have negative implications on doctor-patient relationships and patient care can get compromised so it is necessary to find the ways through which we can lower the anger.