P-1011 - Mental health of medical students in different levels of training

Abstract

Objectives:Medical education and training can directly contribute to the development of psychological distress in medical students. This can lead to catastrophic consequences such as impaired academic performance, impaired competency, medical errors and attrition from medical school. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of psychological morbidity among Iranian medical students.Methods:This was a cross-sectional study. Samples of medical students in different levels of training (basic science, clinical clerkship, internship, and residency stage) were entered into the study. The 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was used to measure psychological morbidity. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were used to report on findings.Results:In all, 220 medical students were invited to take part in the study. Of these, 192 students agreed to fill in the questionnaire. The mean age of respondents was 25.4 (SD = 5.2) and 53% were female. Overall 49.5% of the students scored above the threshold on the GHQ-12 (score > 3.5). The results obtained from logistic regression analysis indicated that female gender and level of training were the most significant contributing factors to increased psychological distress [OR for female gender = 2.99; OR for the basic science group = 6.73].Conclusions:Psychological distress appears to be common in medical students and significantly varies by gender and level of training. The psychological well-being of medical students needs to be more carefully addressed, and closer attention to eliminating the risk factors is critical to prevent consequent adverse outcomes.

Assessment of Mental Health among Iranian Medical Students : A Cross-Sectional Study

“…It may also have deeper impact on students' mental health, such as developing anxiety and social problems overtime. This is consistent with the findings of Jafari et al; (15) but Sherina et al found no association between the years of study in medical school and mental health (7) neither Assadi et al found any significant difference between undergraduate students, interns and postgraduates. (18) Although mean GHQ scores were not significantly different in three groups of socioeconomic status, the participants with lowest economic position had higher scores.…”

“…This is somehow close to the findings of Jafari et al, who reported near half of their participants had scored above the normal point in GHQ-12. (15) But this finding of our study is much higher than the prevalence of mental health problems in Dubai medical students found by Ahmadi et al (16) The prevalence of mental morbidity was also higher among our participants compared with Turkish and Nepalese medical students, which are 48% and 20.9% respectively. (21,22) We found higher percentage of abnormal mental health status among our participants in comparison to a study conducted in Tehran University of Medical Sciences, which was 43.9%.…”

“…(18) The higher mean scores of anxiety and especially depression rather than somatic and social subscales found in our medical students agrees with high proportion of these morbidities measured by their specific tools in United States and Canadian medical students, reported in the systematic review by Dyrbye et al (1) Although, there were no significant differences between genders, the prevalence of mental morbidity was higher in males in our study; and this is not similar to other studies' findings, which reported higher mental problems among females. (1,7,15,18) Third and fourth year medical students had higher proportions of abnormal mental health status with higher mean scores of all subscales; compared with second and first year students. This shows that years of training may negatively influence mental health.…”

“…(17) Previous studies have assessed the reliability and validity of Persian form of the GHQ-28 and were of acceptable ranges from 0.73 to 0.89. (18)(19)(20) Through factor analysis, the GHQ-28 has been divided into four subscales, which are somatic symptoms (items 1-7); anxiety/insomnia (items [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]; social dysfunction (items [15][16][17][18][19][20][21], and depression (items 22-28).…”

“…(14) Similar study in Iran reported that close to 50 percent of the medical students had ill mental health based on General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) score and there were significantly different scores due to age, gender and level of education. (15) However, according to our best knowledge there is not any published study assessing mental health in medical students of Shiraz, so we aimed to measure the prevalence of mental health disorders and some of its associations among this population.…”