Many researchers have emphasized the importance of teaching stress management and self-care skills to medical students as they are vulnerable to develop psychological health problems. The researchers designed a 4-hour intervention based on the DEAL model to address these problems. This study aimed to determine outcomes of the DEAL-based intervention on medical students’ stress, anxiety and depression symptoms. Methods: A randomized controlled trial study was conducted on 171 medical students. Their stress, anxiety and depression symptoms were measured by the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale at five intervals; at 2 weeks before the intervention, and at 1 week, 8 weeks, 16 weeks and 32 weeks after the intervention. The mixed model ANCOVA was applied to determine the effect of the intervention on the participants’ psychological health at five intervals. Results: A total of 153 medical students (intervention = 73 and control = 80) completed this study. Results showed that the intervention group experienced significantly lower stress and depression symptoms than the control group. Although anxiety scores are consistently lower in the intervention group, no significant differences between groups were found. Conclusion: These results support the favourable outcomes of the intervention on psychological health of medical students. It is a promising intervention to be considered by medical schools as it consumes minimal amount of time, money, training and man power as well can be implemented easily.
Objective: The involvement of families in assisting health professionals in providing care for their family members who suffer a stroke during hospitalization is common in Malaysia. Family caregivers are accountable in providing for the first-ever stroke survivor’s needs, including maintaining functional improvements gained in rehabilitation and the long-term well-being of the stroke survivors. The objective of this study was to determine the predictors of life satisfaction among family caregivers of hospitalized first-ever stroke patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional community research design study with purposive sampling. It involved 102 family caregivers of hospitalized first-ever stroke patients of two tertiary hospitals in Kelantan. The Bakas Caregiving Outcomes Score (BCOS) was used to measure life satisfaction. Multiple linear regression was used to determine the predictors of life satisfaction. Results: Out of 102 respondents, 21 were males and 81 were females with age range of 16 to 76 years. Significant predictors of life satisfaction of caregivers while caring for their hospitalized first-ever stroke family members were caregivers’ health (β: -2.875, 95%CI: -5.725, -0.025, p = 0.048), patients’ age (β: - 4.251, 95% CI: - 6.379, -2.123, p
Cooperative learning is one of the active learning techniques. There are three commonly recognized types of
cooperative learning groups, namely informal cooperative learning (ICL), formal cooperative learning and
cooperative base groups. There is no study been done on ICL which relate to radiology teaching. The results of this
study will provide evidence to support either traditional lecture (TL) or ICL is a more suitable teaching method for
radiology teaching. This study was aimed to compare students’ attitude and preference towards TL versus ICL in
radiology teaching. This interventional study had been conducted among 52 third year Bachelor of Medicine and
Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students at Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin. They underwent both TL and ICL methods
during eleven radiology lectures in classroom setting from September 2013 until July 2014. Subsequently, multiple
items questionnaires regarding students’ attitude and preferences towards TL and ICL were administered. These
questionnaires had undergone validation process and revealed excellent internal consistency with Cronbach’s Alpha
of 0.90, 0.92 and 0.88 respectively. The mean total attitude score towards informal cooperative learning was (90.90)
(SD: 11.73) significantly higher than the score for traditional lecture 85.46 (SD: 11.82) (p= 0.012). Students showed
preference in ICL significantly in six domains. These domains were active involvement in the class, promotion of good
rapport among classmates, getting an opportunity to help others, facilitation of understanding difficult materials,
improvement of communication skills, opportunity for training to be a good leader and follower, and opportunity for
enabling to participate in sharing information, making decision and problem solving. ICL method is recommended in
radiology teaching because students demonstrated better students’ attitude and preferences in the learning sessions
as compared to TL.