The Impact of the SARS-COV-2 Pandemic on the Mental Health and Employment Decisions of Medical Students in North China

Abstract

Background: The outbreak of severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) has led to long periods of social isolation for individuals across the world. Although medical students generally have a high prevalence of mental health problems, they have received less attention than other groups concerning the impact of SARS-COV-2. Therefore, the present study investigated the mental health status, risk factors, and protective factors for mental health problems in medical students in North China during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic.Methods: A WeChat-based survey, which included the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 and measures of social demographics, was performed twice. Risk and protective factors were identified by binary logistic regression analysis.Results: A total of 702 effective questionnaires were collected in two separate surveys. In total, 24.55% of medical students were suffering anxiety to different degrees of severity, 13.18% were suffering depression in the first survey, and 3.71% wanted to give up working in primary medical care during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in the second survey. In contrast, during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, a risk factor for anxiety and depression was gender which is male, while being knowledgeable about the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and having a lower academic burden were both protective factors.Conclusions: Measures are required to prevent increases in mental health problems in medical students. Our findings suggest that increasing knowledge about the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and reducing academic burden in medical students is extremely important during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Mental Health of Medical Students in Portugal

“…Several other studies have pointed to a significant difference between genders in terms of anxiety, pointing to higher levels of anxiety and stress in females just like in our sample [12,15,[17][18][19][20]23,24,[27][28][29]37]. However, we also found some studies that did not observe statistically significant differences between genders in terms of anxiety and stress in their samples [13,14,16].…”

“…However, we also found some studies that did not observe statistically significant differences between genders in terms of anxiety and stress in their samples [13,14,16]. This shows the complexity associated with how gender may affect mental health functioning, as recent evidence suggests that biological factors, such as the variation in ovarian hormone levels, and psychosocial variables, such as social expectations, maybe associated with the increased prevalence of depression and anxiety in women [17,19,24,28].…”

“…Gender, especially being female, was shown in several studies to be a risk factor for anxiety and stress [12,15,[17][18][19][20]23,24,[27][28][29] as well as depressive symptoms [17] during the COVID-19 pandemic. Females tend to be more predisposed to express their feelings and are more likely to experience different social expectations, pressures, and gender equalityrelated positions [23].…”

The Professional Identity and Career Attitude of Chinese Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Survey in China

“…At the time of our survey, medical students were staying in their home towns on winter vacation. And medical students from urban resident or rural resident are different, this could be explained by imbalances between economy, culture, and different publicity efforts relating to pandemic prevention knowledge between urban and rural areas ( 21 ).…”

“…Recently, the professional identities of medical students have gradually studied. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some scholars paid attention to the career attitudes ( 21 , 22 ) and willing to volunteer ( 23 ) in medical students; medical students are motivated by a sense of purpose or duty, altruism, perception of good performance and values of professionalism. Previous studies also have focused on the tense physician-patient relationship and violent injuries in China, which may have affected medical students' professional identity ( 24 ).…”