Original Article
Social Phobia and Academic Achievement among
Alfajr College for Science and Technology Medical Students, Khartoum, 2022
Rahaf I. H. Ali1, Amani
A. S. Burbur2, Egbal A. B. Abukaraig3
1Teaching Assistant, Community Medicine
Department,Alfajr College for Science and Technology, Khartoum, Sudan
2Assistant Professor, Community Medicine Department,
University of Khartoum, Sudan
3Director of the Research and Development Centre,
Alfajr College for Science and Technology, Khartoum, Sudan
Corresponding author
Rahaf Ibrahim Hamed
Ali, Teaching Assistant, Department of Community Medicine, Al-Fajr College of
Science and Technology, Khartoum, Sudan
Email: rahafibraheem15@gmail.com
Abstract
Background: Social phobia, also called social anxiety
disorder, is one of the anxiety disorders and is considered as one of the most
common psychiatric disorders. It is defined as persistent fear of one or more
performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people.
Aim: The
study aimed at assessing the distribution pattern of social phobia and its effect on academic achievements
among batches five and six medical students in Alfajr College 2022.
Methods: The
study was a descriptive cross sectional institutional based study, carried out
in Khartoum State at Alfajr College. The Data was collected through structured questionnaire
using social phobia scale (SPS) by Raulin and Wee. Electronic Self-administered
interview was the method of data collection. Convenience sampling technique was
used to involve the first respondents of batch 5 and 6 medical students of
Alfajr College. Data was entered, categorized, and analyzed using Excel and
Statistical Package for Social Science.\
Results:
A total of 151 students
were included in this study. The study showed that prevalence of social phobia
among Alfajr medical students in batches 5 and 6 was 27.2%, while41.7% of
students had impending social phobia.. In this study, social phobia did not
affect academic achievements of the studied sample, as indicated by their Grade Point Average scores.
Conclusion:
About a quarter
(27%) of Alfajr medical students in batches 5 and 6 had social phobia.
However, it didn’t affect the academic achievement in this studied sample.
Keywords: Social
phobia, Academic achievement/performance, Medical students, Sudan.
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:Introduction
Social phobia – also called social anxiety disorder – is a common anxiety disorder and is considered one of the most common three psychiatric disorders, with major depression disorders and anxiety disorders.(1,2)
Social phobia is the persistent fear of one or more performance situations in which the person exposed to unfamiliar people. The individual fears that the person will act in a way or show anxiety symptoms that will be embarrassing and humiliating.(3)
Social phobia has been associated with impairment in most areas of functioning like education, employment, family relationships, marriage/romantic relationships, friendships/social networks, and other interests.(4, 5)
Phobia of something is when being excessively fearful of a situation or object on an ongoing basis, for six months or more, feeling an intense need to avoid or escape from the feared situation or object, experiencing panic or distress when exposed to the situation or object.(5)
It is apprehension or fear of social interaction or social situations in general and is considered as one of the mental or behavioral dysfunctions.(4)
Symptoms of social phobia include facial blushing, nausea, sweating, shivering, increased heart rate, fear of criticism and difficulties in communication or speaking.
Social phobia's prevalence varies between countries and cultures.(6) Social phobia prevalence in Western countries accounts for 7-13%. (7) In India, it was reported at a rate of 10%; and in Saudi Arabia 11.7 %.(8,9) Various studies have shown that males are diagnosed with social phobia more often than females.(10)
Persons with social phobia have lower self-esteem than those without, and they have significantly lower quality of life, impairments in work performance, and negative impact on social relationships.(11,12) Social phobia increases the risk of developing a major depressive disorder and has a high comorbidity with other mental disorders.(13)
This study aims to determine the prevalence of social phobia among medical students at Alfajr College for Science and Technology (ACST) and to disclose whether the presence of social phobia affects students' academic performance.
Materials and Methods
Study design and area
The study was a descriptive cross-sectional institutional based study. It was conducted among ACST medical students, batches 5 and 6. ACST is located in Khartoum State, was founded in 2015, and had ten programs and seven batches. On the average, each batch in each program composed of around100 students.
:Sample size and technique
The sample size was calculated using the formula
n=N/{1+(N E ²)}
Where: n= the sample size, N=number of the study population (243), E= margin of error at 95%confidence interval (0.05). The computed sample size (n) =151.
The sample was collected as a convenience sample. Questionnaires were sent through Google form link to the targeted study population, and the first respondents were taken until the calculated sample size was achieved.
:Data collection tools and technique
Electronic self-administered interview was used with a closed ended questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of participants’ background characteristics, their rating to their academic achievement and the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) by Raulin and Wee.(14)
The SPS scale is a 36-item Yes-No self-report measure, to assess specific social-interpersonal behaviors associated with schizotypal personality disorder. Respondents were asked to endorse each item with "Yes" or "No" depending on whether they judge the item applied to themselves or not. Each ”Yes” was given 1 point, while “No” answers were given 0 for 28 items; while for the remaining sentences 3,7,14,16,17,27,28,33 the score was reversed, by scoring “No” answers by 1 and “Yes” answers by 0. A total score is obtained by summing ratings made across all 36 items. The scores were categorized as low risk social phobia from 0-11, impending social phobia from12-23 and high social phobia from 24-36.
Academic achievements were classified according to the Grade Point Average (GPA) as excellent for GPA 3.5 to 4, Very good for 3 to 3.4, Good for 2.5 to 2.9, Pass for 2 to 2.4 and Fail for less than 2. The judgment was based on the students’ response as per his or her GPA last score.
Data analysis
Data entry and analysis was done using Microsoft Excel and SPSS statistical software ver25. The level of significance was set at 0.05 with 95% confidence interval and a p-value < 0.05. The Fisher's Exact Test was used to test the association between the presence of social phobia and its effect on academic achievements.
Ethical consideration
Ethical clearance was obtained from the ethical review committee of the community medicine department at ACST. Voluntary informed consent for participation in the study was taken from each student as part of the structured questionnaire.
Results
The study covered 151 medical students with 100% response rate. Around two thirds (65.6%) of the participants were females and the majority (94%) were single. The most frequent age group (74.2%) was 20-25 years.
Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics and achievements of the study sample. It is notable that over half of the respondents (53.6%) achieved a GPA of Very good or higher. A score of Good or higher was achieved by 90% of the respondents.
The distribution of the Social Phobia Scale among ACST medical students showed that 41.7% of students got scores indicating impending social phobia, while 27.2% got scores indicating social phobia. The majority were female students in both cases. (See Table 2)
Table (3) shows that social phobia was significantly associated with the female gender (p value= 0.005). However females were the majority of the study sample constituting 65.6%.
When considering the relation between social phobia and academic performance in the studied sample, no significant association was found (p value=0.296), as shown in Table 4.
Discussion
In the present study, 27.2% of the medical students were considered to have social phobia. This is less than the results from two studies on medical students from Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, where the prevalence of social phobia was found to be 60% and 56% respectively.(15,16)Similarly, in an Iranian study, the prevalence of social phobia including three grades (moderate, severe and very severe) among medical students was found to be 58.5%.(6)
Also a high prevalence (85%) was reported among medical students in Prague, Czech Republic.(17) On the other hand, a relatively low prevalence of social phobia symptoms (22%) was reported among medical students in Norway.(18) The lowest percentage of prevalence (8%) was reported among English medical students.(19)
This difference in prevalence of social phobia between medical students may be attributed to the use of different tools for evaluating prevalence of social phobia as well as the differences in culture and socio-demographics between different communities.
In this study, more female medical students were affected by social phobia than male students. This may be attributed to cultural and social factors. In addition there were more females than males in the studied sample size. In the study from Saudi Arabia, male medical students reported higher scores for social phobia than females.(15)
In the current study, academic achievement was not affected by different social phobia grades, contrarily to the Saudi study, which demonstrated that medical students with high scores for social phobia tended to show lower academic achievements.(15)
:Conclusion
About a quarter (27%) of ACST medical students in batches 5 and 6 had social phobia. This seems to be a considerable proportion of students although academic performance was not affected. However, the College may consider educating students about social phobia and how to counteract it, including psychological support.
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