Empowering Minds: A Study of Mental Health Among Pharmacy Students

Abstract

: Pharmacy students are the next generation of frontline healthcare providers. However, the course itself is very challenging and requires students’ ultimate commitment to keep track with learning in the ever-changing healthcare field. Therefore, it is vital to evaluate their current mental well-being and its associated factors for better planning student’s support initiatives. This study aimed to assess psychologically distress and its associated factors among pharmacy students. A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate pharmacy students in a tertiary university. Students were required to answer a self-administered questionnaire consisting of demographic questions and General Health Questionnaire-12(GHQ-12). Mean, standard deviation, Pearson chi-square test were used to find the association difference between various parameters using SPSS 26 software. A total of 243 out of 302 pharmacy students took part in the study. The overall response rate was 80.5%. The prevalence of psychologically distress students was 41.6%, based on the cut-off points 4 of GHQ-12. The factors that were found to be associated with mental health status are gender, pharmacy as first choice of study and satisfaction towards their relationship with family. A higher prevalence of psychologically distress students was found among female students, students who do not have pharmacy as first choice of study and students who do not have satisfying relationship with family. Year 3 has the highest prevalence of psychologically distress students compared to other year of study. Social and psychological support to improve mental health of pharmacy students is needed due to high prevalence of psychologically distress students found in this study in order to improve mental health of pharmacy students. Intervention that can be done include stress management, group counselling mentor-mentee program to cope with mental problem.