Korean Medical Education Review (의학교육논단)

Yonsei university college of medicine (연세대학교 의과대학)
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Relationships among Cultural Disposition, Morality, and Psychological Health of Medical Students in a Province of Korea

A지역 의과대학생의 문화성향, 도덕성, 그리고 정신건강과의 관계

  • Lee, Sunyoung (Department of Radiation Oncology, Sun Medical Cancer Center) ;
  • An, Byungduck (Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Pai Chai University)
  • 이선영 (유성선병원 방사선종양학과) ;
  • 안병덕 (배재대학교 심리철학상담학과)
  • Received : 2015.11.23
  • Accepted : 2016.02.05
  • Published : 2016.02.29
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Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the relationship among the cultural disposition, morality, and psychological health of medical students to determine how these factors might relate to curriculum planning in medical education. Data was collected from a total of 186 medical students. The questionnaire used included the individual cultural disposition scale, the symptom checklist-90-revised, and the defining issues test. To evaluate individual cultural disposition, we classified students into four categories-low, individual, collective, or mixed cultural disposition-using individualism/collectivism and vertical/horizontal dimensions. We found that those who were younger and in earlier academic years had higher collectivism than individualism and the males had higher individualism than the females. There was no difference in morality or psychological health by the students' sex, age, or academic year. Horizontal collectivism and moral judgment showed a statistically significant correlation (r=0.150, p<0.05), as did stage 6 morality and symptoms of damaged psychological health (r=-0.156, p<0.05). Other than these relationships, no significant correlations between cultural disposition and morality or between morality and psychological health were found. Cultural disposition did have correlations with various aspects of psychological health; specifically, the highest correlation coefficients were found in the relationships between phobic anxiety and horizontal individualism, psychoticism and vertical collectivism, and hostility and horizontal collectivism. The four cultural disposition categories showed relationships not with morality but with psychological health factors including depression, anxiety, hostility, and phobic anxiety. We hope the results of this study can be used to improve the curriculum of medical education.

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References

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