[Psychosocial behaviour and subjective experience specific to the course of study of medical students in their first and fifth years of study].

AIM: This study concerns the evaluation of study-related psychosocial risk factors and resources in medical students at the beginning and before the end of their course of studies.

METHODS

Written questionnaires were filled out by medical students in Lübeck and Freiburg in their first and fifth years of study and analysed with three standard instruments (AVEM, SAM, F-Sozu). The response rate was 84.5% (n=435) in the first and 83.0% (n=351) in the fifth year of study.

RESULTS

At the outset of their course of study, most of the students evinced behaviour and subjective experience patterns which were not deleterious to their health. Nevertheless, even at this point in time, 22.9% of the students showed a risk constellation with an excessive commitment to work and readiness to overstrain themselves. With 17.9% resignatory exhaustion with a highly restrictive subjective quality of life was found. In the fifth year of study, this proportion had increased to 23.3%, while the quality of health behaviour and subjective experience patterns deteriorated. Self-awareness and social support were augmented by comparison with norm samples.

CONCLUSION

A portion of the medical students showed a risk constellation in behaviour and subjective experience at the very beginning of their studies. At the end, this tendency has significantly strengthened. The integration of teaching contents dealing with health promotion and successful coping with stress for the medical students themselves would therefore seem essential for the conservation of the health and working capacity of the students, as well as in order to prevent subsequent profession-specific mental stress and burn-out.