COMPARISON OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STATUS AMONG PRECLINICAL AND CLINICAL MEDICAL STUDENTS WITH GENDER DIFFERENCES

Abstract

Background: The rigorous curriculum and high-stakes environment of medical school can significantly impact students’ psychological well-being. This study assessed the correlation of preclinical, clinical year students, and their gender with depression, anxiety, and stress among medical students.

Materials & Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 351 medical students in the Physiology Department, College of Medicine, from January 2022-April 2022. A predesigned questionnaire including sociodemographic characteristics and Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DASS) was distributed to medical students.

Results: The preclinical year students show prevalence of depression 67.5%(n=166), anxiety 76.8%(n=189), and stress 56.5%(n=69) compared to clinical year students (69.5%(n=73), 74.2%(n=78), and 44.7%(n=47)) respectively. The statistical differences between the two groups in anxiety is p=0.044 and in stress its p=0.051. The preclinical year students show severe anxiety (50.0%, n=123) compared to the (35.3%, n=37) of clinical year students. Regarding gender, there is a difference in anxiety between male 68.0%(n=132) and female 85.9%(n=135) with p value of less than 0.001, but there are no differences in the prevalence of depression and stress among male and female medical students (62.3%(n=121) vs 75.1%(n=118) with p =0.069 and 47.9%(n=93) and 59.2%(n=93) with p=0.138 respectively. It also shows (51.5%,n=81) female students were severely anxious while male students were less severely anxious (40.7%, n=79). The mean of the total sample size depression score is 16.3 (moderate degree), the mean of the total sample size anxiety score is 16.3 (severe degree of anxiety), and the mean total sample size stress score is 17.3(mild degree).

Conclusions: Our findings include high prevalence of psychological disorders in preclinical year when compared to clinical year and female students when compared to male. Both findings could have adverse effects on student performance, teaching staff performance, and the academic environment as a whole. As a leading college, medical schools should take this alarming message into consideration and work on reconstructing a healthy academic environment. We recommend the decision makers to focus on shifting the academic attention to the quality rather than quantity.