Imposter Syndrome Among Medical Students of Private Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the total prevalence, year of study-wise as well as the gender-wise distribution of Impostor Syndrome (IS) amongst the undergraduate medical students at CMH Lahore Medical College, using the eight-question questionnaire of the Young Impostor Scale (YIS).

Study design: The study was cross sectional and descriptive survey.

Place and duration of study: Conducted in CMH Lahore Medical College from January to April 2018.

Methods: A total of 260 students from five years of MBBS and from both genders were enrolled in the study. Non-probability convenient sampling technique was used. The Youngs Imposter Scale (YIS) was used as the questionnaire.

Results: A total of 79(30.4%) students were positive whilst 181(69.6%) were negative for imposter syndrome. Class-wise distribution shows Imposter syndrome to be most prevalent in students of 2nd year (9.2%) out of the 5 MBBS classes. Also, imposter syndrome is more prevalent in the female (38.8%) population than male (25.35%) and this difference is statistically significant (p=0.02)