Mental health and future doctors: a cross-sectional study

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Background: Stress may occur while pursuing a career in medical education, as it is a training that involves emotions. Medical professionals are found to experience stress, especially the medical students who are mostly occupied with a tight schedule. The stress experienced by the students leads to negative consequences on their academic performances and psychological well-being. Objective: To determine the level of stress and depression among the first-year medical students and to explore the sources of stress and depression. Materials and Methods: About 300 first-year MBBS students were selected for the study. The students were informed and explained about the nature of the study. General Health Questionnaire 12 and the Beck’s depression inventory were given to each participant to assess the stress and depression levels. Students were asked in detail about the academic and nonacademic problems. The responses were recorded. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Result: Among the 300 medical students, 128 (42.33%) students revealed stress and 79 (26.33%) of them showed depression. The remaining 94 did not show stress/depression. The stress in female subjects was more (60.93%) when compared with male subjects (39.08%). The depression was also found to be more in female subjects (54.43%) when compared with male subjects (45.56%), but the results were not statistically significant. Conclusion: This study concluded that there is a high prevalence of stress and depression among medical students. Female subjects showed high prevalence then male subjects. Academic and nonacademic problems were contributing more to develop stress and depression.