title: Relationship between academic performance and affective changes during the first year at medical school.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Entering medical school may be associated with changes in the students' life, which can affect academic motivation and impair academic performance.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This work aimed at measuring longitudinally academic motivation, anxiety, depression and social adjustment in first-year medical students and determining the relationships between these variables and academic performance, as measured mainly by grades on regular exams.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eighty-five first-year medical students (age: 17-25 years) were included after giving informed consent. Beck's Anxiety (BAI) and Beck's Depression (BDI) Inventories, the self-reported Social Adjustment Scale (SAS-SR) and the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) were applied two months after admission and at the end of the academic year.
  
  
  RESULTS
  BAI scores increased throughout the year (7.3 ± 6.6 versus 28.8 ± 6.7; p < 0.001), whereas BDI scores did not change (6.8 ± 5.9 versus 6.0 ± 5.4; p > 0.10). SAS-SR subscales scores remained stable, except for a decreasing pattern for leisure/social life (1.8 ± 0.4 versus 2.1 ± 0.4; p < 0.001). AMS scores for motivation to know (22.2 ± 4.5 versus 19.7 ± 5.5; p < 0.001), to accomplish things to know (17.7 ± 5.3 versus 15.4 ± 5.3; p = 0.001), to experience to know (18.2 ± 5.2 versus 15.4 ± 5.4; p < 0.001) and by identification to know (23.5 ± 3.5 versus 21.8 ± 5.0; p = 0.002) decreased significantly. There were no significant correlations between academic performance and the global scores for any of the scales except for the SAS-SR subscale for academic life (r = -0.48, p < 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Throughout the academic year, first-year medical students showed increased anxiety, decreased academic motivation and a maladjusted leisure/social life, which however does not seem to affect academic achievement.
authors: Departamento de Neurociências e Ciências do Comportamento, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Brazil. delben@fmrp.usp.br
authors: Cristina Marta
authors: CM
authors: Del-Ben
authors: Vanessa Foresto
authors: VF
authors: Machado
authors: Mariani Mendes
authors: MM
authors: Madisson
authors: Tamara Lovatto
authors: TL
authors: Resende
authors: Fernando Passador
authors: FP
authors: Valério
authors: Luiz Ernesto De Almeida
authors: LE
authors: Troncon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*