Intrinsic component of resilience among entry level medical students in the United Arab Emirates

Background Resilience is the capacity to recover and to cope successfully with everyday challenges. Resilience has intrinsic and extrinsic components and an effort has been made to study the intrinsic component and its association with sociodemographic factors, among the entry level students of the Integrated Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) course. Method The present study was conducted in Gulf Medical University, using a self-administered questionnaire, comprising of two parts, distributed to all the students who consented to participate. The first part contained questions on socio-demographic details while the second part contained questions on the intrinsic and extrinsic components of resilience of the students. The data collected was analysed using Predictive Analytic Software (PASW) 18.0 using frequency, mean, SD and median. Results Among the 58 students who participated 24 (41.4%) were males and 34 (58.6%) females, of which 70.7% were < 20 years and 29.3% > 20years. The mean score for the intrinsic component of resilience was 48.9 (SD, 5 and range 35-60). The median scores showed no significant variation (p< 0.05) with age, gender, religion, nationality, family structure, highest education among parents, the person they share their feelings with or the number of friends. However, minimally higher scores were noted in the median scores of students from nuclear families, with Western nationality and those whose parents had a university level education, who shared their feelings with people of their own generation or outside their family and who have 5-9 friends. Conclusion The intrinsic component of resilience was found to be almost uniform for the study group and the level is high. A study has to further look into its effect on coping with the stresses encountered during the academic year.