Comparison of anxiety and sleep scores of intern doctors at the beginning and end of emergency department internship

Anxiety is a psychological and physiological condition with cognitive, somatic, emotional and behavioral components. Medical education, which is a long and challenging process, can create anxiety in students. In addition, it is known that medical school students are at risk for less sleep. Sleep-related problems can affect a person's daily professional and social life, as well as impair cognitive function and quality of life. In this study, it was aimed to determine the anxiety level and frequency of sleep problems of intern doctors, compare them in terms of the specified parameters and evaluate the possible change of these parameters during the emergency department internship training process. İntern doctors working in the emergency department between 01.07.2022-30.06.2023 were included in the study. In our study, Beck Anxiety Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Questionnaire and 5 questions about sociodemographic characteristics (month of study, age, gender, state of anxiety when coming to the emergency department and state of having been diagnosed with anxiety before) questionnaire form were applied to the students. IBM SPSS 25.0 for Windows package program was used in the analysis of the data in this study. The average age of the intern doctors in the pre-test was 23.97 and the average age in the final test was 23.99. In the pre-test and post-test, 60.7% of the intern doctors were women. It was determined that 45.4% of intern doctors in the preliminary test and 39.9% in the final test experienced anxiety when coming to the emergency department. There was no statistically significant difference between the intern doctors' Beck anxiety score averages in the pre-test and post-test. The PKI score averages were 6.83 in the pre-test and 8.15 in the final test, and there is a statistically significant difference (p=0.0001). The pre-test SCORE assessment of 59.6% of doctors and 80.3% of them had poor sleep in the last test. The PUKI score was significantly higher in those aged 25 years and older compared to those aged 23 and 24 years (p=0.005). There was no statistically significant difference in sleep assessment according to age in the pre-test and post-test. There was a positive correlation between the PKI score average in the pre-test and the Decal test and the Beck anxiety score average. As a result, it was determined that intern doctors who had sleep disorders or had poor sleep quality showed symptoms of anxiety. In addition, it was found that the levels of sleep disorders at the beginning of the internship were higher at the end of the internship and there was an increase in the rates of those who had poor sleep.