BackgroundThere is a need to better understand the depression phenomenon and to clarify why some students become depressed and others don’t. The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of depressive symptoms among health professions’ (HP) students, and to explore the association between socio-demographic factors (e.g. year of study, discipline, gender) and depressive symptoms.MethodsIn this descriptive–analytic, cross-sectional study, stratified proportionate sampling strategy was used to select the study sample during the academic year 2012–2013. The students from four health professions’ schools situated within a large, public university located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia were screened for depressive symptoms using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI II). Chi-square test, student t-test and ANOVA were used to compare different categorical variables.ResultsThe overall response rate was 79.0 %, the highest among dental students 86.1 %, and lowest among nursing (49.7 %). The overall prevalence rate of depressive symptoms was 47.0 %; it was highest among dentistry students (51.6 %), followed by medicine (46.2 %), applied medical sciences (AMS) (45.7 %) and lowest among nursing students (44.2 %). A statistically significant association was found between the presence and severity of depressive symptoms on one hand and the female gender (p = 0.000) and year of study on the other hand.ConclusionThis study seems to indicate an alarming rate of depressive symptoms. Female gender, dentistry, the third year for all schools and fifth year for medicine and dentistry have the highest association with depressive symptoms. Future studies may be needed to explore further the reasons and explanations for the variation in the prevalence of depressive symptoms among these groups. The factors that deserve exploration include curricular variables and personal factors such as the students’ study skills.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12909-016-0794-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The quality of items written for in-house examinations in medical schools remains a cause of concern. Several faculty development programs are aimed at improving faculty's item writing skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a faculty development program in item development. An objective method was developed and used to assess improvement in faculty's competence to develop high quality test items. This was a quasi experimental study with a pretest-midtest-posttest design. A convenience sample of 51 faculty members participated. Structured checklists were used to assess the quality of test items at each phase of the study. Group scores were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance. The results showed a significant increase in participants' mean scores on Multiple Choice Questions, Short Answer Questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examination checklists from pretest to posttest (p < .0005). The effect sizes were 1.38, 3.84 and 2.20 for Multiple Choice Questions, Short Answer Questions and Objective Structured Clinical Examination, respectively. This study emphasizes that items written by faculty without faculty development are generally lacking in quality. It also provides evidence of the value of faculty development in improving the quality of items generated by faculty.

It has been shown that medical students have a higher rate of depressive symptoms than the general population and age- and sex-matched peers. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of depressive symptoms among the medical students of a large school following a traditional curriculum and its relation to personal background variables. A descriptive-analytic, cross-sectional study was conducted in a medical school in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The medical students of King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were screened for depressive symptoms using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory. A high prevalence of depressive symptoms (48.2%) was found, it was either mild (21%), moderate (17%), or severe (11%). The presence and severity of depressive symptoms had a statistically significant association with early academic years (p < 0.000) and female gender (p < 0.002). The high prevalence of depressive symptoms is an alarming sign and calls for remedial action, particularly for the junior and female students.