title: Financial wellness awareness: A step closer to achieve Millennium Development Goals for Pakistan.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore financial wellness (FW) awareness amongst public and private sector medical college students of Karachi.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross sectional questionnaire based survey was conducted on medical students from 3 public and 5 private sector medical colleges of Karachi from February 2011 to December 2011. All ethnic groups having age range of 18-23 years were included. A questionnaire tailored from wellness wheel evaluated the responses of FW on a four point Likert's scale ranging from 0-3(never, sometimes, mostly, and always). Factor analysis explored common FW factors among both public and private sector medical college (MC) students.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Private MC Students were better in terms of making short and long terms financial goals compared to students in public sector. The students of public MC were more focused to make and restricting to given budgets (p=0.05). The FW element of keeping savings in bank account was responded more by private MC candidates (P < 0.0001) but was spent thrift as well (P < 0.0001). Factor analysis revealed two factors; 'Financial Security Wellness' which was better in Private MC Students (p=0.001) and 'Care towards Expenses Wellness" in which results were not significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Both groups of medical college students lacked FW awareness element in terms of caring towards financial expenses. The awareness of importance of financial security was practiced better by private MC students in terms of making short and long term financial goals and keeping savings in bank accounts. They were however deficient in the knowledge of making and restricting themselves to budgets.
authors: Dr. Rehana Rehman, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Aga khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors: Rehana
authors: R
authors: Rehman
authors: Dr. Shahjahan Katpar, Professor Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Institute of Dentistry, Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences, Jamshoro, Pakistan.
authors: Shahjahan
authors: S
authors: Katpar
authors: Dr. Rakhshaan Khan, Public Health Physician.
authors: Rakhshaan
authors: R
authors: Khan
authors: Mehwish Hussain , Senior Lecturer of Biostatistics, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors: Mehwish
authors: M
authors: Hussain
keywords: Financial Security; Financial literacy; Financial wellness; Medical students; Pakistan; Wellness wheel