Meaning in life as a predictor of the general health among medical sciences students: A cross-sectional study

The relationship between social support and professional identity of health professional students from a two-way social support theory perspective: chain mediating effects of achievement motivation and meaning in life

BACKGROUND

Studies has suggested that receiving social support improves the professional identity of health professional students. According to the two-way social support theory, social support includes receiving social support and giving social support. However, the effect of the two-way social support on health professional students' professional identity has not been clarified yet.

METHODS

To explore the mechanism of how two-way social support affects health professional students' professional identity, an observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among a convenience and cluster sample of 1449 health professional students from two medical schools in western China. Measures included a short version of the two-way social support scale, a health professional students' professional identity questionnaire, an achievement motivation scale, and a meaning in life scale. Data were analyzed by use of SPSS26.0 software and PROCESSv4.0 plug-in.

RESULTS

Receiving social support, giving social support, achievement motivation, meaning in life, and professional identity were positively correlated with each other. Receiving and giving social support not only directly predicted health professional students' professional identity, but also indirectly predicted health professional students' professional identity through the mediating roles of achievement motivation and meaning in life, and the chain mediating roles of achievement motivation and meaning in life, respectively. The effectiveness of predicting health professional students' professional identity varied among different types of two-way social support, which could be depicted as two-way social support > mainly giving social support > mainly receiving social support > low two-way social support.

CONCLUSION

In the medical education, the awareness and ability of health professional students to receive and give social support should be strengthened. More attention should be drawn on the chain mediating effect of achievement motivation and meaning in life between two-way social support and professional identity. The current results shed new light on exploring effective ways of improving health professional students' professional identity, which suggested that more attention should be paid to the positive effects of mainly giving social support and two-way social support rather than only on the effects of receiving social support.

Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of the Personal Meaning Profile in Iran

The Personal Meaning Profile (PMP) is a widely used instrument to measure people's perceptions of personal meaning in their lives. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the PMP. First, the researchers developed the Persian version of this scale using the forward-backward procedure. Then, they examined the face and content validities by both qualitative and quantitative approaches. To evaluate the construct validity, researchers administered the instrument to a sample of 482 medical sciences students and performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The reliability was assessed using loading factors, Cronbach's alpha coefficients, and composite reliability. An average scale-level of content validity index of the PMP with 57 items was 0.80. The findings revealed that the Persian version of the PMP comprises five factors explaining 50.57% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis indices showed a moderate fit for the data. Reliability of the Iranian version of PMP was demonstrated with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.893. Consistency was established with test-retest reliability with an interval of 2 weeks (Intracluster Correlation Coefficient = 0.983, p < 0.001). Moreover, the criterion validity demonstrated a significant inverse relationship between the PMP and General Health Questionnaire (r = - 0.34, p < 0.001). This study indicated that the Persian version of the PMP is an acceptable, reliable, and valid measurement to evaluate the meaning in life in Iranian medical sciences students.

Research on the Relationship Model between Professional Identity and Life Meaning of Clinical Medical Freshmen based on Artificial Intelligence Medical Image Detection

Objective

To understand the current situation of professional identity and life significance of clinical medical freshmen in a university in Xinjiang, analyze its influencing factors, find out the influencing factors and causes, and intervene and improve them. Provide the public with better medical and health management services, so that people can independently and effectively predict and prevent diseases; at the same time, it can also guide people to make more correct and wise choices in uncomfortable situations.

Methods

A questionnaire survey was conducted on 793 freshmen majoring in clinical medicine with the college students' professional identity questionnaire and the Chinese version of the meaning in life scale (C-MLQ).

Results

The freshmen total score of professional identity was (97.48 ± 12.21). The total score of meaning in life was (53.26 ± 7.15), and the meaning in life and the professional identity were significantly positively correlated (r = 0.467, P < 0.01). Students with first choice, only child, urban living, and parents with a high educational level scored higher in their professional identity (P < 0.05). First choice (β = −0.11, P < 0.001), place of residence (β = −0.07, P=0.03), father's education level (β = 0.08, P=0.04), family monthly income (β = −0.09, P=0.02), and the presence of meaning in life (β = 0.54, P < 0.001) are the influencing factors of students' professional identity. Both professional identity and meaning in life have important relationship with the mental health of medical students. In the development of modern medicine, finding personal career orientation and goals helps to establish a correct outlook on life, values, and the world. It has a positive impact on the development of personal physical and mental health.

Conclusion

The professional identity and life meaning of clinical medical freshmen are at the upper middle level, which can be improved through medical education and other measures. The joint efforts of society, schools, families, and individual students are needed to improve the professional identity of medical students.

Psychosis due to anxiety related to COVID-19: A case report

Introduction and importance

Limited information is available regarding various effects of lifestyle changes caused by coronavirus pandemic on human life. On the other hand, if the fear of getting infected by coronavirus is accompanied by other psychological crises, it can possibly lead to psychosis in people with or without a previous history of mental illness.

Case presentation

The patient is a 36-year-old man with no previous history of mental illness who divorced his wife 6 months before the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. The patient developed auditory hallucinations and paranoid thoughts after the outbreak. After diagnosis of psychosis, treatment with injectable haloperidol was started. He was then treated with risperidone for maintenance therapy. On the other hand, for depressive symptoms, the patient was treated with bupropion. One week after starting the treatment, the patient's paranoid thoughts and auditory hallucinations improved.

Clinical discussion

Getting infected with coronavirus or being severely afraid of it may cause symptoms of psychosis in those with a history of previous mental disease. There is also evidence that extreme fear of infection with coronavirus can lead to psychosis if accompanied by other psychological crises.

Conclusion

It is necessary to pay more attention to the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety caused by COVID-19. Failure to immediately treat the anxiety caused by the fear of infection in this pandemic or other epidemics can lead to more serious problems such as psychosis and create further risks for the individual, family and community.

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Getting infected with coronavirus or being severely afraid of it may cause symptoms of psychosis.

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Failure to immediately treat the anxiety caused by the fear of infection, can lead to more serious problems such as psychosis.

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Many studies have shown that infection with this virus has direct psychological effects on patients as well as on those around them.