Assessment of Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety & Stress among Medical Students

Aims: To Assess Depressive, Anxiety & Stress related symptoms and their correlation with sociodemographic factors amongst recently enrolled medical students.

Study Design: Cross sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Recently enrolled 275 Medical students attending University between June 2022 and September 2022.

Methodology: Study conducted among recently enrolled 275 Medical students. After taking their prior informed consent through online form shared through WhatsApp group, they were given to fill online questionnaire to collect sociodemographic factors in English made using PsyToolkit software. It also contains Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS 21), which was used to collect information on depressive, anxiety, and stress related symptoms.

Results: Prevalence of depressive symptoms is 68.4%, anxiety symptoms are 78.2% and stress related symptomsis 33.1% among medical students. Depressive, anxiety and stress related symptoms were statistically significantly associated with peer and family pressure to join study-stream (p-value of <.01 for all three) and history of mental health issues in family (p-value=.01 for all three). In addition, depressive symptoms were statistically significantly associated with poor peer-relationship (p-value=.01) and unsatisfaction regarding admission (p-value=.04); and stress related symptoms was statistically significantly associated with unsatisfaction regarding admission (p-value=.03).

Conclusion: Prevalence of depressive, anxiety & stress related symptoms among recently enrolled medical students are high providing insight into needed improvement of psychological wellbeing in them; which could potentially have a positive impact upon their quality of life & patient care.