[01] Darsindra Bhaskaran, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College (Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [02] Wan Danial Hakim bin Wan Abd Rahman, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College (Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [03] Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Imashi Baghya, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College (Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [04] Pua Zhao Heng, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College (Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia. [05] Reshmi Prem Nair, Faculty of Medicine, Melaka-Manipal Medical College (Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Melaka, Malaysia.

Happiness is one of the most subjective and attractive topic of researchers in the current days, in the fields of social sciences and health. Medical students in contrast to students of other courses are judged to be less happy. This cross-sectional study was conducted to determine and quantify the association between sociodemographic factors, social support, personality and perceived stress level with happiness level. All the medical students of our college were invited to participate and 192 students responded to our questionnaire which consists questions of sociodemographic factors, Oxford happiness questionnaire, social support questionnaire, perceived stress questionnaire and Meyer Briggs Personality Type Indicator. We calculated unpaired t-test, ANOVA and linear regression. We found that 38.55% of medical students are moderately happy to very happy, and 94.27% had moderate to high stress level. Males (mean 4.0) are happier than females (mean 3.8). As for the ethnicity, Indians and Malays had highest happiness score with means of 3.9. Extrovert and judging personality had higher happiness score with mean score of 4 and 3.9 respectively. There was significant positive association between appraisal social support and the happiness. Perceived stress shows a negative association with happiness of students; where higher the stress level, lower the happiness. Majority of the medical students had moderate to high stress level and only one-third of them were moderately to very happy. There was significant association between appraisal social support, stress and happiness among them. Hence, medical students are encouraged to not overload themselves and keep themselves intact with passions to stay happy.

Happiness, Stress, Social Support, Personality, Survey

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