Medical students' perception of inpatients' anxiety, self-esteem, purpose-in-life and health locus of control as compared with nursing practitioners'.

Medical students (fourth-year: n = 67; fifth-year: n = 63) estimated inpatients' feelings of anxiety, self-esteem, purpose-in-life, and multidimensional health locus of control. Their ratings were compared both with the ratings given by the 121 inpatients themselves and with those given by nursing practitioners (nurses and nursing students). Findings showed that the medical students overestimated inpatients' anxiety, while they underestimated the inpatients' purpose-in-life and internal health locus of control. Hence they underestimated, as did the nursing practitioners, the inpatients' positive emotional states and their positive attitude toward their own lives. Fifth-year medical students, with clinical experience, rated the inpatients' score of chance health locus of control higher than did the fourth-year medical students, who had no clinical experience. These findings indicate that medical students, like nursing practitioners, are inclined to pay more attention to inpatients' weaknesses than to their strengths.