Comparison of Medical Student Syndrome Among Medical Students in Karachi, Pakistan

Hypochondriasis, otherwise known as Medical Student Syndrome, is a common diagnosis for students of medicine. The objective of this study is to compare the prevalence of Medical Student Syndrome among pre-clinical and clinical year medical students at public sector medical schools in Karachi, Pakistan. A cross-sectional study was conducted at a public sector medical school. A total of 316 students were selected through multistage stratified random sampling. A validated and structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Any student with a known psychiatric disorder was excluded from the study. Data, with a chi-square test, determined the difference in syndromes between pre-clinical and clinical years of students. A p-value of 0.05 was considered statistically significant in the analysis. We found that Medical Student Syndrome is more prevalent among clinical year students than pre-clinical students and this difference is statistically significant (Mean Rank: 23.6 2.42 vs. 29.8 1.98, p-value 0.005). Differences in clinical and pre-clinical year students related to different items of the anxiety scale, such as stress affects, physical and mental health (P-value-0.032), and disease interfering with daily activity (P-value-0.031). Clinical year students are more likely to self-medicate, seek psychiatric counseling, and be concerned about their health. There is need for a counseling system which will reduce the burden of this syndrome. Keywords: Anxiety, Hypochondriasis, Medical Student Syndrome.