[Cognition in medical residents with and without anxiety in a specialist training hospital].

Abstract

Background: The resident doctor plays an important role in people's health care.

Objective: To compare the cognition of medical residents with/without anxiety in a specialist training hospital.

Material and methods: Comparative, prospective, cross-sectional study. Medical residents of any grade and specialty were included, who signed informed consent. Those with a diagnosis of cognitive impairment were excluded, and who did not complete the tests were eliminated. AMAS-A test was applied to assess anxiety and NEUROPSI: Attention and memory test for cognitive characteristics. Mann-Whitney's U and Spearman's rho were used, p≤0.05 was considered significant.

Results: 155 residents were evaluated, 55.5% men, mean age 32.4 years. Internal Medicine was the predominant specialty (25.2%). AMAS-A identified 94.19% residents with anxiety. NEUROPSI reported Attention and memory domain (38.7%) in normal classification, Memory (34.2%) in high normal, and Attention and executive functions (32.3%) in severe alteration as predominant assessments. Only Memory showed a significant difference between residents with and without anxiety (p=0.015). Attention and executive functions-Physiological anxiety (r=-0.21, p=0.009) and Attention and memory-Social concern (r=-0.268, p=0.001) correlations were significant.

Conclusions: The percentage of anxiety and cognitive alterations in residents physicians is high. Anxiety decisively affects memory capacity in these medical doctors.