Abstract
Background: Since the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic there has been a profound impact on the psychosocial health of medical professionals, with heightened risk reported on measures of depression, anxiety, and stress relative to non-healthcare professionals. However, there is limited data on the impact of COVID-19 on the psychosocial health of U.S. undergraduate medical students. The current cross-sectional study aims to examine associations between pandemic-related experiences and psychosocial risk among a sample of medical students attending a Northeastern U.S. allopathic medical school. Methods: One-hundred and seventy-nine students (42.6% of the study body) completed an online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic that included sociodemographic characteristics, the 30-item Brief Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory (EPII-B), the 2-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2), the 2-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-2), and the Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5). Results: Rates of serious adverse pandemic-related experiences (e.g., increased conflict, less physical activity, frequent substance use) were as high as 37.5%. Students with a greater number of adverse pandemic-related experiences reported more time with COVID-19 positive patients and were more likely to screen positive for depression, anxiety, and PTSD (rs from 0.25 – 0.34, all ps < 0.01). Conclusion: These findings suggest the need for other U.S. medical schools to evaluate and address medical student mental health during the COVID-19 public health crisis.
Highlights
The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.1 Since many aspects of daily life have drastically changed, with constraints on interpersonal relationships, work, home life, and mobility as a result of occurrences such as social distancing, virtual activities, furlough, increased contact with household members, less contact with extended family, forced quarantine, and government enforced lockdowns
Several studies far have linked pandemic stress to heightened risk for psychosocial impairment in the general population during this time.[2,3]. This effect seems to be pronounced for healthcare workers on the ‘front-line’, which may be partially attributed to long working hours, shortages of personal-protective equipment (PPE), emotional distress caring for COVID-19 patients, and the stigma associated with chronic potential exposure to the virus.[4,5]
The current findings suggest that high rates of adverse pandemicrelated experiences in medical students are associated with indicators of psychosocial impairment (Figure 1)
Summary
The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.1 Since many aspects of daily life have drastically changed, with constraints on interpersonal relationships, work, home life, and mobility as a result of occurrences such as social distancing, virtual activities, furlough, increased contact with household members, less contact with extended family, forced quarantine, and government enforced lockdowns. Several studies far have linked pandemic stress to heightened risk for psychosocial impairment in the general population during this time.[2,3] This effect seems to be pronounced for healthcare workers on the ‘front-line’, which may be partially attributed to long working hours, shortages of personal-protective equipment (PPE), emotional distress caring for COVID-19 patients, and the stigma associated with chronic potential exposure to the virus.[4,5]. Since the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic there has been a profound impact on the psychosocial health of medical professionals, with heightened risk reported on measures of depression, anxiety, and stress relative to non-healthcare professionals. Students with a greater number of adverse pandemic-related experiences reported more time with COVID-19 positive patients and were more likely to screen positive for depression, anxiety, and PTSD (rs from 0.25 – 0.34, all ps < 0.01).
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