A take on social wellbeing attributes by first year medical students

Objective: To compare awareness about concept of social wellness in male and female first year medical students. Methods: It was a cross sectional, questionnaire based study conducted from February till December 2010. Responses on aspects of social wellness were rated never, sometimes, mostly and always from lowest to highest (1- 4); evaluated as frequency, proportion and percentages by PASW (Predictive analysis software) version 18. Chi square test was applied for comparison of social wellness in both genders; results to be declared significant with p value 0.05. Results: Overall score for social well being of females (20.24±4.50) was higher than male medical students (18.66±4.76; p 0.0001). Majority of the female respondents believed that they exhibit fairness and justice in public dealing (p 0.004), had a good network of close friends and family (p 0.001), were prompt at helping batch fellows (p 0.004), participated in group discussions (p 0.004), followed dynamics of communication (p 0.05) and were better at solving problems (p 0.01) as compared to the male respondents. Conclusion: The scores highlighted a better interaction of females with the social environment.