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| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2018 | Volume
: 13
| Issue : 4 | Page : 171-174 |
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Psychological pain as predictor of impulse control among BAMS new entrants: A correlation study
Rupali Dhananjay Sarode1, Vaishali Dinesh Tendolkar2
1 Students' Guidance Clinic, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Wardha, Maharashtra, India
2 Department of Mental Health Nursing, SRMM College of Nursing, Wardha, Maharashtra, India
| Date of Web Publication | 16-Apr-2019 |
Correspondence Address:
Mrs. Rupali Dhananjay Sarode
JNMC, Sawangi (M), Wardha - 442 004, Maharashtra
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/jdmimsu.jdmimsu_26_19
Background: Emotional discomfort in health professional students many times results in mental health-related problem in the future. First-year students face emotionally stormy transitional phase which leads to more psychological pain. Impulse control (patience) is considered as an absolute virtue of health professionals. Health professional students are expected to possess good impulse control for they come across varied natured people with diverse health problems in different stages of severity. Objectives:(1) The primary objective of this study is to identify the relationship between psychological pain and impulse control among new entrants studying in BAMS course. Research Design: This was correlation study. Population: First-year students both male and female from 1st year BAMS course. Sample Size: 100, (50 males and 50 females). Setting: Ayurveda Science Colleges in Nagpur and Wardha districts. Materials and Methods: Orbach Mikulincer Mental Pain Scale and Impulse control scale by Shrivastava and Naydoo. Results: Psychological pain and impulse control among male new entrants show a strong negative nonsignificant correlation (r = −0.475, P > 0.05), and for females, the correlation is statistically significant weak-positive (r = 0.181, P < 0.05). Together male and female new entrants have a negative statistically significant correlation (r = −0.363, P < 0.05). Conclusion: The findings suggest that higher the psychological pain, lower is the impulse control for both male and female new entrants of Ayurveda Science discipline. Male students show the greater magnitude of negative relation as compared to that of female students.
Keywords: Impulse control, psychological pain, relationship
How to cite this article:
Sarode RD, Tendolkar VD. Psychological pain as predictor of impulse control among BAMS new entrants: A correlation study. J Datta Meghe Inst Med Sci Univ 2018;13:171-4 |
How to cite this URL:
Sarode RD, Tendolkar VD. Psychological pain as predictor of impulse control among BAMS new entrants: A correlation study. J Datta Meghe Inst Med Sci Univ [serial online] 2018 [cited 2023 Mar 28];13:171-4. Available from: http://www.journaldmims.com/text.asp?2018/13/4/171/256205 |
| Introduction | |  |
Health professional courses are very prestigious in society whether it is Allopathy, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Dentistry, Physiotherapy, and Nursing disciplines. It is highly taxing and carrying mental pressure as compared with the other professional courses. The main aim of the health professional courses is to train students to become physicians who will promote the health of all people. Becoming physician is a very demanding commitment that bestows strong personal effects and shapes many life events.
Students from various medical professions represent highly educated and skilled population which is always under significant pressure because of their vast syllabus, peer competition for academic performance, continuous evaluation, and long duration of training as well as complex routine of observation, interpretation, acquiring and retaining factual information, developing new skills for accurate diagnosis and treatment. These courses considered as toughest due to long hours of studies, time-bound assignments, seminars, postings in various clinical departments, and examinations both written and oral. All these make health professional courses more stressful. The entry to these course leads to many psychological changes in students. Emotional problems increase during the period of all undergraduate courses of medical education which can lead more mental health problems in students and may have a negative effect on overall personality of the students.
Students after completion of HSSC and entrance test take admission in these courses on merit basis. At this stage, they definitely lack emotional stability, intelligence, patience, keen observation, decision-making, responsibility, patience, empathy, and human values that are most important qualities one must possesses to be a health professional. First-year students face emotionally stormy transitional phase which leads to more psychological pain, anxiety, and depression. A cross-sectional study at a medical college in Saudi Arabia, Abdulghani, reported the prevalence of all types of stress among 57% of students and severe stress among 19.6% of students. The study also reports a significant association between the years of the study and stress levels experienced by the students, and that 60.3% students reported stress due to their studies, and 2.8% of students due to the home environment.[1]
A study by Sultana on 1–5th year students of medical college revealed that 34.6% of students showed mild stress, 39.8% had moderate stress, and 24.9% had severe stress. Among these students, 73% male students and 56% female students had moderate-to-severe psychological distress.[2] A study by Magaya, Self, and Schreiber, (2005) reported that Zimbabwean adolescents ages from 17 to 19 years experienced stress and major stressors included school work, relationships, social life, and financial hardship. Females reported higher stress than that of males.[3]
New entrants face problems of coping with the transition from youth to adulthood and college atmosphere. Adolescence is a transitional and stormy period in which individual's status vague and confusion prevails about the roles that the individual is expected to play. The adolescence at this time is neither a child nor an adult. It is the period of heightened emotionality, rapid changes that accompany sexual maturity, changes in their bodies, their interests and in the roles; the social group expects them to play; create new problems.[3]
Particularly, when newcomers staying hostels or other places for the first time being away from family life; an accommodation and food habit lead to lots of physical and mental health problems among them. Those students who are psychically and mentally strong enough can adjust themselves in such environment and those who are weak can become depressed easily.
All these situations and problems of new entrants of health professional courses lead to severe psychological pain in them. Therefore, new entrants of BAMS course are the focus in this study.
The investigator has found studies done on MBBS (modern Medicine) and nursing students for the assessment of psychological pain, and psychopathologies such as conduct disorders, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, stress levels, stress disorders, and eating disorders. Furthermore, there are studies done to assess the impulse control of general students and medical students. These studies are very few in number and are assorted in nature.
The investigator did not find any studies done on new entrants of Ayurveda Science for the variables, namely, psychological pain and impulse control. In India, except for the developers of the tools, no one has so far done any study with the mental pain. The review of the literature suggests that more studies are done on medical students, and practically, no similar studies are seen on BAMS students. This may be probably because the course (BAMS) is run only in India. Most of the studies use only one health discipline for study which is mostly either MBBS or nursing. There are very few studies on dental science students. A few studies are found on new entrants of universities delivering general education and not professional education.
Psychological pain
Psychological pain or psychic, it is thwarted or distorted psychological needs. It is all life's unhappy aspects, fear dread, defeat, and the dark side and the dark movement of anxiety. When we experience these negative emotions in some heightened degree, psychological anguish and disturbance follow, we feel upset, disturbed and perturbed.[3]
The lasting unstable and unpleasant feeling results from negatives appraisal of an inability or deficiency of the self. This negative self-appraisal is typically brought on by the loss of someone or something, or failure to achieve that is intimately linked to core psychological needs.[4]
Levi, et al. in 2008, found that variables from mental pain domain predicted the presence of suicidal behavior.[5]
Impulse control
It is observed that patience is absolute virtue of students of health professional courses. The concept of impulse control often referred to as self-control and sometimes self-regulation. A striking features of human behavior is that people impose restrictions on themselves, interrupting their own activities, and delaying the available gratification, when delay of gratification is imposed on the individual by external forces, we talk of “frustration” and when the delay is self-imposed, we call it “self-control”.[6]
Ford and Blumenstein, (2013) reported the college students with low self-control were at greater risk for reporting binge drinking, marijuana use and when students reported greater opportunities to use and also reported substance use by their friends.[7]
Males who measured high in thrill-seeking behavior and low self-control reported significantly more properly delinquency. Interpersonal delinquency was most influenced by a lack of self-control [Table 1], [Table 2], [Table 3].[8] | Table 1: Distribution of participants according to their level of psychological pain
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 | Table 2: Distribution of participants according to their level of impulse control
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 | Table 3: Relationship between psychological pain and impulse control among BAMS boys and girls
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Objectives
- To assess the psychological pain among the BAMS new entrants
- To assess the impulse control among the BAMS new entrants
- To identify the relationship between psychological pain and impulse control among new entrants studying in BAMS course.
| Materials and Methods | | |
- Research approach – Nonexperimental approach
- Research design – A correlation study
- Sampling technique – Nonprobability purposive sampling
- Setting – Ayurveda Science Colleges of Wardha and Nagpur districts
- Sample size – 100 UG new entrants.(50 male and 50 female)
- Sample – New entrants of BAMS course in the age group of 17–22 years, both male and female.
Materials
Orbach and Mikulincer mental pain scale
The scale was developed to assess the psychological or mental pain by Israel Orbach and Mario Mukilincer of Iseral in 2003, It is a paper-pencil self-reporting test using the Likert Type 5-point rating scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (weighted 1) to “ strongly agree” (weighted 5). The researcher used raw scores to assess the level of psychological pain.
Impulse control scale
Impulse control scale (I-C) was developed by Dr. Anjali Shrivastava and Prof. R. H. Nayadoo (1982/87). It contains 65 statements. It is a paper-pencil self-report measures of impulse control using the Likert Type 5-point scale ranging from “Never (weighted 1) to “ Always” (weighted 5).
Method of data collection
The proposal of the study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Board. Permission of the college authorities was taken before recruiting the study participants. The study participants were briefed about the study, and their doubts were clarified before recruiting them for the study.
Data analysis procedure
All the filled-in questionnaires were scored as per instructions given in the test and/to test the manuals. This raw data were initially entered by the researcher into a 2007 Excel sheet. After this, a printout of raw data was taken and subjected to SPSS 17 version (SPSS Inc. 233 South Wacker Drive, 11th Floor Chicago, IL 60606-6412) for further analysis.
Given below are the various statistical analyzing used.
- Descriptive statistics such as the means and standard deviations for all the variables used in the study was used to describe the demographic profile
- A correlation matrix was obtained to examine the association between the variables.
| Results | | |
The present study was designed to identify the relationship between psychological pain and impulse control among new entrants studying in BAMS course.
The analysis of the data was done as per the objectives of the study. Distribution of the participants according to the demographic characteristics shows that 98% of participants were in the 17–19 age groups and 2% were in the 20–22 age groups.
According to the psychological pain, 29% had mild psychological pain, 61% had moderate, and 10% had severe psychological pain.
According to the level of impulse control, 1% of students had poor impulse control, 48% of students had average impulse control, 49% of students had good impulse control, and 2% of students showed excellent impulse control score.
The mean psychological pain score for new entrant boys of BAMS course is 100.72 ± 22.69, and the mean score of psychological pain for girls is 105.96 ± 23.66 which indicates that all the participants have psychological pain. BAMS girls showed higher psychological pain as compared to that of BAMS boys. The mean impulse control for new entrants BAMS boys is 208 ± 74 and for girls is 191.56 ± 20.6 which indicates that BAMS boys had good impulse control than that of BAMS girls.
The correlation coefficient between psychological pain and suicidal ideation was calculated by Karl Pearson's correlation coefficient at 5% level of significance and found psychological pain and impulse control among male new entrants show a strong-negative significant correlation (r = −0.475, P > 0.05) and for females the correlation is weak-negative significant correlation (r = −0.192, P > 0.05). Together male and female new entrants are showing a statistically significant negative correlation (r = −0.363, P < 0.05). Thus as psychological pain increases, impulse control for both male and female decreases.
| Discussion | | |
The aim of the present study is to identify the relationship and level of psychological pain and impulse control among new entrants of Ayurveda science profession. The researcher did not get similar studies to support these findings, but in the study of Orbach, Mikulincer, Sirota, and Schechtman (2003) among Israeli undergraduate students, psychological pain positively related with psychopathology (anxiety and depression).[9] In the study by the findings indicate that psychological pain is positively correlated with psychopathology (suicidal ideation).[10]
Lippink, Odlang Lust, and Christenson and Grant (2016) reported impulse control is negatively associated with psychopathology in young adults.[11] Also reported that impulse control is negatively correlated with psychopathology in teenagers.[12]
| Conclusion | | |
The findings suggest that higher the psychological pain, lower is the impulse control for both male and female new entrants of Ayurveda Science discipline. Male students show greater magnitude of negative relation as compared to that of the female students. It would help the students of medical professions, particularly, the Ayurveda science to have training of impulse control techniques.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
| References | | |
| 1. | Abdulghani MH. Stress and depression among medical students: A cross sectional study at a medical college in Saudi Arabia. Pak J Med Sci 2008;24:12-7.  |
| 2. | Magaya L, Asner-Self KK, Schreiber JB. Stress and coping strategies among Zimbabwean adolescents. Br J Educ Psychol 2005;75:661-71. |
| 3. | Sultana N. Stress and depression among undergraduate medical students of Bangladesh. Bangladesh J Med Educ 2011;2:6-9. |
| 4. | Shneidman ES. The Suicidal Mind. Canada: Oxford University Press; 1996. p. 4-7. |
| 5. | Meerwijk E, Weiss S. Toward a unifying definition of psychological pain. J Loss Trauma Int Perspect Stress Coping 2011;16:402-12. |
| 6. | Levi Y, Horesh N, Fischel T, Treves I, Or E, Apter A. Mental pain and its communication in medically serious suicide attempts: An “impossible situations”. J Affect Disord 2008;111:244-50. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2008.02.022. |
| 7. | Shrivastava A, Nayadoo R. Manual for Impulse Control Scale. Varanasi: Mental Science Assessment Organization; 1987. |
| 8. | Ford J, Blumenstein L. Self-control and substance use among college students. J Drug Issues 2013;43:56-68. |
| 9. | Pfefferbaum B, Wood PB. Self-report study of impulsive and delinquent behavior in college students. J Adolesc Health 1994;15:295-302. |
| 10. | Orbach I, Mikulincer M, Sirota P, Gilboa-Schechtman E. Mental pain: A multidimensional operationalization and definition. Suicide Life Threat Behav 2003;33:219-30. |
| 11. | Leppink EW, Odlaug BL, Lust K, Christenson G, Grant JE. The young and the stressed: Stress, impulse control, and health in college students. J Nerv Ment Dis 2016;204:931-8. |
| 12. | Braham S, Hadj Kacem I, Mlika S, Moalla Y, Walha A, Gaddour N, et al. Impulsivity and externalization and internalization problems in adolescents. Encephale 2015;41:215-20. |
[Table 1], [Table 2], [Table 3]
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