Reduction of the anxiety of medical students after curricular reform

Abstract

Objectives: Curricular structure may interfere in students' anxiety level at medical schools. The objective of this study was to assess anxiety levels in medical students before and after a curriculum reform at the Medical School of Ribeirão Preto and to compare them with students at other courses that had no curricular changes in the same university campus. Method: Study samples were obtained in two moments: 1) two years before the reform; 2) after the reform when the reformed curriculum completed its fourth year. The pre-sample (former curriculum) consisted of 307 medical students and 217 students from psychology and biology courses. The post-sample (new curriculum) was composed of 330 medical students and 194 students from psychology and biology courses. Anxiety was assessed by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results: Comparing the pre with the post sample, we found STAI-T scores of the students under the former curriculum were significantly higher in the first (42.9 + 1.08) and second (41.9 + 1.1) years than the STAI-T scores of the medical students under the new curriculum (38.1 + 1.0 and 37.9 + 1.06, respectively). Students from other courses and 5th year medical students, who followed the same curriculum, did not show any significant differences between different samples. Conclusion: These results suggest that changes to medical school curricula may reduce the medical student' levels of anxiety in the first two years of the course.