Abstract

The authors studied anxiety, using Zung's Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), in the subjects of 3,499 male and 1,335 female college freshmen of Yeungnam University. The authors collected the reports of SAS during the periods from January to February, 1986, and applied ANOVA and t-test on anxiety scores in order to compare them between various psychosocial factors, and sexes. The results are as follows: There was significant difference in the mean averages of total anxiety scores between male and female students: male students scored 32.91±7.70, female students scored 34.48±6.00, (P<0.001). The anxiety scores relating to the items of sweating, apprehension, restlessness, and insomnia were relatively higher in both groups. The anxiety scores relating to the items of faintness, mental disintegration, tremors, dizziness were lower in both groups. Thirty-nine male students (1.1%) showed seriously high anxiety scores of 50 or higher, while twenty-one female students (1.6%) showed the same scores. So the authors inferred that the features of anxiety symptoms were much the same in our country, but female showed more various symptoms and higher level of anxiety than males. Male students attending in pharmacy showed higher level of anxiety scores (P<0.01). There was a strong tendency toward higher anxiety scores in the students who were dissatisfied with their home atmosphere, colleges, department and familiarity of parents, and those who had pessimistic views of self image in the past, present, or future, in both groups (P<0.001).