[Hypochondriacal fears and corona fears among medical students compared to doctors].

Abstract

Hypochondriacal fears among medical students were already investigated before the COVID pandemic. Studies on these fears under pandemic conditions and a possible influence of specific fear of illness have not yet been conducted.We asked medical students at two points in time about symptoms of hypochondria and corona anxiety. Doctors served as the comparison group. Hypochondria was assessed using the two MSD scales, corona anxiety using a separate questionnaire.Medical students exhibited significantly more hypochondriacal anxiety at both time points. At the second time point, 35.5% of students and 25.5% of doctors reported fear of contracting the virus.The time of the study did not appear to have any influence on the prevalence of the fears investigated. The influences of the measured anxiety prevalence were shown in the fact that medical students look to their professional careers with concern.