Usama Khalid Choudry
Objective: Aim of this study was to evaluate and compare psychological depression, anxiety and stress among the medical students living with family and those living in dormitory to find out whether psychological state of mind of a student was affected by their residential conditions.
Method: A comparative cross sectional study was done on 211 students from 3 medical colleges of Pakistan following curriculum of Dow University of Health Sciences. Students were assessed by a self-administered questionnaire developed on DASS-42 scale. Prevalence rate, risk estimation and two tailed significance of levels of depression, anxiety and stress was calculated using SPSS 20.0.1.
Result: A total of 211 medical students participated in the study. Students living with family were 122 (57.81%) and those living in hostels were 89 (42.18%). Prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress calculated for home students was 34.42%; 45.08% & 36.06% respectively and for dormitory students it was 40.4%; 43.82% and 30.33% respectively. The two tail significance for all three variables was >0.05 indicating an equivocal trend in both study groups.
Conclusion: The prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress was uniformly high in both home and hostel medical students, yet still, correlation with residential conditions was not established. Depression was more prevalent in dormitory students while anxiety and stress were elevated in home students based on risk estimation. Our study provides an insight regarding a very serious health issue which demands further exploration for development of effective health programs with a more targeted approach for the benefit of young physicians of Pakistan.
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