Daily spiritual experiences among medical students of North India

Introduction: Spiritual health is an essential component which contributes towards overall wellbeing of an individual. Spiritual healthy people tend to bear stress of life more comfortably as compared to others. It is well documented in many studies that medical student's faces lots of stress on daily basis as they have to work hard in studies during their long study period to score good marks and progress further. This study was undertaken to quantify the daily spiritual experience among medical student. Objective: To measure the daily spiritual experience among medical students. Methods: Cross Sectional Study carried among first year medical students studying in government medical college of north India. Their daily spiritual experiences were measured using standard Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES). Date analysis was done to measure daily spiritual experiences among medical students. Results: Among 91 Medical students who participated in the study, 52 (57.1%) were female and 39 (42.9%) were male. Majority of participants 84 (92.3%) were from age group 17-20 years. The response obtained from participants were analysed and range of response was calculated. Daily spiritual experiences was divided into high (19-41), medium (42-54) and low (55-81) as per the tertiles distribution of the data. Among study participants 41(45%) were found to have higher spiritual experiences, 28(30.8) were having medium, 22(24.2%) were having low spiritual experiences. Conclusion: This study has clearly shown that variations exist in experiences of spirituality on daily among medical students. There is a need to improve this spiritual orientation which will help them to bear stress associated with day to day life.