Abstract

Background & Objective: Exam anxiety is one of the most common psychological problems and a deterrent to students' academic achievement. Objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is one of the methods to assess the achievement of educational goals of anesthesiology and operating room students. One of the disadvantages of this test is that it causes anxiety in students. This study tends to investigate the causes of anxiety in operating room and anesthesiology students before administration of OSCE. Methods: This study was a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study conducted in 2019 in Ilam University of Medical Sciences. The subjects were 50 anesthesiology and operating room students. All students completed the conscious satisfaction questionnaire and test anxiety inventory (TAI) on the day of the exam. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 20 using one-way ANOVA and independent ttest and Pearson correlation coefficient at a significant level of P<0.005. Results: In this study, 34 (68) were female and 16 (32) were male, 16 (32) had high test anxiety, 24 (48) had moderate test anxiety, and 10 (20) had low test anxiety. Results showed a significant difference in anxiety score by gender (p = 0.006) and by grade point average (p = 0.008). Conclusion: Considering the high level of student anxiety before the OSCE, planning for accurate design of test stations, preparing students during the semester, organizing workshops to get acquainted with the OSCE, and allocating sufficient time to the test can reduce student anxiety before the test.