Abstract
Objective: Imposter Phenomenon (IP) is an internal belief of intellectual self-doubt and incompetence that is experienced by individuals even though they are highly accomplished or successful in their field of work. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of IP among Emergency Medical Care (EMC) students at a South African university.
Method: An exploratory, quantitative and cross-sectional survey was presented to the EMC students (n=71) at the University of Johannesburg in person. The participants (n=50) completed demographic data and the Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale (CIPS) which was analyzed by a statistician. The CIPS give the participants a score out of a 100 and the higher their score, the more frequently they experience IP feelings. Additional questions were added to determine if the participants tend to procrastinate or over-prepare for future tasks and identify specific areas that increased the participants IP feelings.
Results: Response rate was 70% (n=50). Moderate to intense feelings of IP were experienced by 92% (n=46) of the EMC students at a South African university. Sixty- six percent of the respondents were female with a mean age of 22.9 years old. The overall mean score on the CIPS for the total EMC student cohort was 57.48 (SD:12.26). The area that the participants felt increased the feeling of being imposter the most was clinical settings with 41.7%, followed by clinical and theoretical settings combined 33.3% and lastly theoretical settings, 25%. Out of n=49, 81.6% (n=40) participants procrastinate and 18.4% (n=9) tend to over-prepare for tasks.
Conclusion: Based on the data collected, the study identified that there was a moderate to frequent prevalence of IP among the majority of South African EMC participants at that point in time. This could be attributed to the high stakes, very stressful nature of the degree where the decision making is sometimes the difference between life and death.
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Due to the small sample size of the individual groups, assumptions can not be made with respect to the EMC population as a whole. It can only be hypothesized that age, sex, years of study and years of experience do have an effect on the prevalence of IP among a target group.