P02-103 - Medical students test anxiety

Introduction Most students experience some level of anxiety during the exam. However, when anxiety affects exam performance it has become a problem. Test anxiety is a special form of anxiety, which is characterized with somatic, cognitive and behavioral symptoms of anxiety in situations of preparing and performing the tests and exams. Test anxiety becomes problematic when is so high that it interferes with test preparation and performance. Aim The objective of this study was to ascertain the presence of test anxiety in medical students and to analyze some aspects of test anxiety in medical students of different gender, different year of studying and possibility of falling the year of studying. Sample and methods Study sample consisted of 198 students of Belgrade University School of Medicine of all grade years. The assessment of test anxiety was conducted by The Test Anxiety Inventory - TAI. Results 1) Medical students generally present moderate level of test anxiety; 2) female students have statistically significant more intense symptoms of test anxiety than male students; 3) most intense symptoms are in III year and the least are at VI year of studies; 4) there is no statistically significant difference in presence of symptoms of test anxiety between the students who repeated some year of studies and regular students. Conclusion There is considerable number of medical students who have intense symptoms of test anxiety and those students require help and support.