The influence of medical students’ life values on their perception of future professional activity during the Covid-19 pandemic

This study aims to investigate life values of medical students in the context of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and their impact on the perception of future professional activities. The study involved questioning 381 students from the 1st-3rd courses of Zhytomyr Medical Institute to test the significance of life values during the first and second waves of COVID-19. The impact of the pandemic on students’ perceptions of life was investigated using several questionnaires. Participants’ general values were measured with a short version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire. Clarity of self-concept was measured with a short scale of Self-Concept Clarity. Sense of meaning in life was measured with the ten-item Meaning of Life Scale and the Future Orientation Questionnaire. Statistical analysis of the study results was performed using IBM SPSS STATISTICS 21.0 software. The software was used to perform reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, Student’s t-tests to compare the indicators between the first and second halves of the pandemic, and correlation for each table of predictors. The study’s results indicate a statistically significant transformation in medical students’ life values. Almost all values increased, except for Self-Transcendence, which remained high during the first and second waves of the pandemic. The students’ views on the meaning of life, their self-esteem, and future professional orientation did not change significantly between the two waves of the pandemic. During both waves of the pandemic, self-transcendence, universalism, conservation, tradition, conformity, self-enhancement, achievement, openness to change, and self-direction were identified as important values for self-concept clarity, sense of life meaning, and future professional orientation. The values of “power” and “hedonism” did not have any impact on these indicators.