Impact of postgraduate entrance examination on mental health of medical graduates

Objective:To explore the impact of postgraduate entrance examination on medical interns' mental health.Methods:We chose 1 182 clinical internship students of a medical college in 71 medical institutions,and divided them into two groups,which were those who would take the examination and those who would not.Symptom Check List and self-designed questionnaires were used to investigate their gender,age,household register,family income,psychological status,as well as the sources of psychological pressure.Results:The differences of distribution characteristics of their gender,age,household register,major and internship institution were statistically significant(P < 0.05 to P < 0.01)in two groups.The percentage of students with psychological problems was 38.2% among those who would take the examination and 20.7% among those who would not(P<0.01).Positive projects,somzatization,interpersonal relationships,hostility and abnormal proportion of terror among students who would take the examination were higher than students who would not(P < 0.05 to P < 0.01).The differences of aberrant sources in both psychological abnormal groups were statistically significant(P<0.01).Conclusions:Graduates who will take the postgraduate entrance examination are more prone to have psychological problems.The sources of psychological pressure vary from one group to another.