A study on assessment of an anxiety before examination, It’s effects and coping techniques among homoeopathic students: A research study

Abstract

Background: In today’s competitive era, students have to face lot of challenges to prove themselves through academic performances and facing an examination is one of them. Examination is an important part of academics where one can judge the knowledge and understanding capacity of students about subject, their skill, and how it encourages the students for future exams and promote discipline in them. It helps to identify the student’s strengths and weaknesses but while going through this journey, they have a lot of anxiety while showing their academic excellence which results in feeling of fear, worry and unease, low confidence, avoidance of study, lack of concentration, poor memory. As no persons are alike, their reactions to stress will also not be same. Even one person can cope up easily with stress while another person can’t. Thus the present study was conducted to assess the anxiety levels and its effect on the mental health of third and fourth year BHMS students before an examination and to guide them about various techniques to cope up with examination funk. Objectives: The objective of the study was to assess the level of anxiety before an examination among the Homoeopathic students. Materials and methods: A total of 100 BHMS students were selected for study. A structured questionnaire was used to assess an anxiety level of each student before an examination. Descriptive statistical analysis was done by using the SPSS software. Result: Out of 100 participants, 53[53%] reported having mild anxiety before an examination. 40% were reported as having moderate anxiety and 7% were reported as having severe anxiety. The most common physical symptom observed were 25[25%] and 22[22% %] which were the most common psychological symptom. About 7% participants were affected by severe anxiety before an examination. 33% were the most commonly used coping techniques by students to overcome an anxiety i.e. watching mobile & TV, using social media. Conclusion: Anxiety before an examination is common among students which act as a positive force for students to achieve their goal, but if anxiety becomes severe it considerably affects their physical, mental, and social life as well as academic performance also. Hence there is an intense need to carry out awareness programs about an anxiety, its effects on health and its correct coping techniques. Ethical considerations: A verbal consent was taken by students and participation was entirely optional. Participants had the right to withdraw at any time. All the collected data was kept confidential. This research project was approved by an institutional ethical committee of Nootan Homoeopathic College and Hospital.