Bullying of medical students

To assess the frequency and forms of bullying experienced by medical students, and the associated factors.

Cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey.

The study was conducted at a private Medical College of Lahore, from January to February 2010.

All the students of first and fourth year classes were included in the study with voluntary and anonymous participation. Self administered-questionnaires were given to the students which were completed by them in the presence of the surveyor. A modified version of the British Medical Associations (BMA) medical student's welfare and education survey form was used for data collection. The data was recorded and analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences version 16.0. Data was described in the form of frequencies and percentages. Chi-square test and Fisher exact test were used to test statistical significance between categorical variables at p < 0.05.

More than half the students 70 (66%) had experienced some form of bullying in the past 6 months at the Medical College. It was found that 70% (49) of the students who were bullied were females. Sixty-seven percent of students reported experiencing a bullying episode at least once in a month, 26% less than once in a month and 7% at least once in a week. The most common forms were verbal abuse (n=44, 63%) and behavioural gestures i.e. making faces (n=36, 51%), followed by having been ignored or excluded (n=20, 29%). The common perpetrators of all types of bullying were fellow students followed by Professors. Feeling lonely or sad (p=0.024), not having a close friend (p=0.049) and knowledge amongst respondents regarding the availability of support services in their college (p=0.019) were significantly associated with being bullied.

Most medical students reported of having been bullied in the last 6 months at the College, with verbal abuse being the commonest form of maltreatment and fellow students followed by Professors being the frequent perpetrators. A history of feeling lonely or sad, not having a close friend and knowledge amongst respondents regarding the availability of support services in their college were significantly associated with these experiences.