Canonical correlation analysis of the personality trait and psychological health status of medical students

Objective Medical students, as the predecessors of doctors, not only require superb professional skills, but also demand good psychological qualities. To investigate the personality trait and psychological health status of nowadays medical students and to analyze their characteristic and investigate their relationships to develop mental health education and further research and provide the basis for designing psychological intervention plans. Methods Between August and November 2017, students of grade 2014 to grade 2017 in a medical college of a university in East Guangdong were involved as the research subject. Symptom Check List 90 (SCL-90) was used to evaluate their psychological health status and Big Five Inventory Scale (BFIS) was applied to investigate their personality trait. All these questionnaires were anonymous. Excel 2016 and SPSS 20.0 were used in data entry and analyzing. Canonical correlation analysis was used to analyze the association between personality trait and psychological health status in nowadays medical students. Results Compared to the national university student norm, the score of SCL-90 shows that there is significant difference except for obsessive-compulsive, depression and psychoticism (all P<0.05). In canonical correlation analysis, the correlation coefficient of canonical variables U₁, V₁ is 0.675 (P<0.001) and of canonical variables U₂, V₂ is 0.485 (P<0.001). The result of canonical correlation analysis shows that Neuroticism and Agreeableness are the main features to reflect the medical students' personality trait while Hostility and Paranoid are the main features to reflect the medical students' psychological symptoms. The research also points out that Agreeableness will improve psychological symptoms and Neuroticism will make it worse. Conclusion To guide the formation and development of positive personality traits like agreeableness is very helpful for improving medical students' psychological health level and promoting their comprehensive development.