Abstract

Objective: To assess the influence of personality traits on pre-disposing the students of CMH Lahore Medical College to anxiety.
Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted in CMH Lahore Medical College, Pakistan from January to December 2019. A total of 146 MBBS students of age 19 to 24 years was randomly selected. The questionnaire “Big Five Inventory-2 Extra Short Form” was used to assess the personality characteristics of participants and “GAD-7 scale” was used to assess the anxiety levels of the participants.
Results: There were influences of personality traits (neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness to experience), on pre-disposing the students to anxiety. Students who scored higher in neuroticism personality trait had highest levels of anxiety. Conscientiousness also showed correlation with anxiety levels. Agreeableness extraversion and openness to experience were negatively linked to anxiety.
Conclusion: The results confirm the hypothesis by establishing a valid relationship between an individual’s personality traits and the likelihood of becoming a victim of generalized anxiety disorder. The study specifically showed high correlation between neuroticism personality trait and anxiety.

Key words: Personality traits, neuroticism, conscientiousness.