Reduction of the anxiety of medical students after curricular reform.
OBJECTIVE
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.


METHODS
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.


CONCLUSIONS
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.
Zuardi
Antonio Waldo
AW
Department of Neurology, Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Medical School, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. awzuardi@fmrp.usp.br
Prota
Fernando Del Guerra
Fdel G
Del-Ben
Cristina Marta
CM
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001938:Brazil; D003479:Curriculum / Q000592:standards*; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult