ASSOCIATION BETWEEN GLOSSOPHOBIA AND PERSONALITY TRAIT AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Background: Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking this is common in medical student’s in all fields .Personality trait is reflecting people’s characteristics pattern of thought feelings behaviors. This study investigate the association between glossophobia and personality trait among medical students Objective: To identify the prevalence of glossophobia among medical students by using PRPSA Questionnaire. Methodology: This cross-sectional study is limited to only medical students in Karachi. In which different medical universities were included, total 349 students were asked to fill forms. In which we were use two questionnaire PRPSA and EPQRS.The PRPSA questionnaire contain 34 questions which evaluate condition and individuals were requested to mark one of the given option. (1)Strongly disagree (2) disagree (3) neutral (4) agree (5) strongly agree. Which are meant to evaluate their speaking anxiety and the EPQRS questionnaire contain 48 questions which assess their dimensions of personality. (1) Extraversion (2) neuroticism (3) psychoticism (4) openness (5) conscientious. These dimensions further categories in three levels low, moderate, high. Results: A total of 349 students , 82.5 % (288) females and 17.5 % (61) males took part in the study. The majority of participant , 61.9% (216) fell within the 18 to 21 yrs age group. While , only 0.3% (1) participant was of age 28 to 30 yrs. Questionnaire was filled by medical students belongs to different medical fields.We applied Cohen’s Kappa statistics and the findings indicate that Glossophobia does not significantly correlate with any personality trait factors. Glossophobia correlation with neuroticism shows a kappa value of 0.016(SE=0.029,p=0.558) indicating no agreement . Conclusion: However,The results highlights that fear of public speaking is more prevalent in female medical students as compared to male medical students and the study shows that more participants exhibit high level of neuroticism.