DESCRIBING MEDICAL STUDENT’S CURIOSITY ACROSS FOUR YEAR CURRICULUM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN DHQ HOSPITAL KASUR

Background: Intellectual curiosity is referred as willingness foe knowledge which may lead to the behaviors which is exploratory and it includes the unchanging and inherited characteristic (i.e. trait curiosity) and a state which is context dependent on a variable (i.e. state curiosity) Objective: The objective of this exploratory research was to explain medical students' intellectual curiosity. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Study Setting: DHQ Hospital Kasur. Study Duration: April – June 2017. Inclusion criteria: Nursing students of either gender. Data Collection and analysis: 100 nursing students were given curiosity inventory of Melbourne in those where students have described themselves in order to indicate their feeling at that point of time and how they feel in general regarding curriculum. Scoring was done to see the state and trait anxiety among students regarding curriculum and gender difference was also evaluated regarding curiosity index. All the information was entered in a structured questionnaire. Date was analyzed using SPSS version: 21.0. Standard deviation and Mean on the items were calculated for state and trait anxiety for Melbourne curiosity index. Gender difference for curiosity index was also evaluated. Results: 70.0% of respondents were female and 30.0% were male. Mean State curiosity was 54.23 SD 9.923 with a minimum of 24 and maximum of 75. Mean Trait curiosity was 56.73 SD 10.71 with a minimum of 24 and maximum of 75. State and trait curiosity was dichotomized to evaluate less curious and curious students regarding curriculum. 39.0% of students were less curious (score 20 - 50) as a state curiosity regarding curriculum as compared to 29.0% for trait curiosity. 61.00% were Curious (score 51-80) as state curiosity as compare to 71.0% for trait curiosity regarding curriculum. Conclusion: In accordance to curriculum the state and trait curiosity index was high in students of medical. Key words: Medical Curriculum, anxiety, trait anxiety, state anxiety, curiosity