Correlates of psychiatric morbidity among Pakistani medical students: A cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Background and Aim: Cultural variations among medical students is one of the factors causing stress and psychological morbidity. This study was carried out to determine presence of psychological morbidity and its association with different sociodemographic characteristics among medical students at a public sector college. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in Gujranwala Medical College, Gujranwala. Eighty-six students out of one hundred selected students by simple random sampling completed the self-administered proforma. It contained socio demographic profile, 12- item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and standardized sources of academic stress. Psychological morbidity or stress was labelled if student scored GHQ score ≥ 21. Results: Twenty-three students (26.7%) were GHQ-12 cases (i.e., scored ≥21) i.e. suffering from severe stress. Among these students, majority were female (73.91%), in their clinical years (73.91%) and living in hostel (56.52%). Academic concerns and psychosocial factors like feeling of being lonely, mood swings and being worried about expectations of parents were major stressors among all the students. Hostelers were worried about the quality of food in mess and feeling of homesickness. Conclusions: It is noteworthy, that in our study population, academic demands were additional sources of psychological morbidity besides other personal and psychosocial issues. It is the need of the hour to intervene at the psychological, social and academic level to improve the quality of life for medical students. This will help in avoiding many psychological problems in the future.