Mental health evaluation in medical students during academic activity suspension in the pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: During the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic, social distancing measures and various other stress factors may have been responsible for impacts on medical students’ mental health. Objective: The purpose of this study is to describe the mental health status of medical students at a college in northeastern Brazil, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigate symptoms of anxiety and depression, and assess resilience, as well as its possible associated factors. Methodology: A cross-sectional qualitative and quantitative method was used. Data were collected using an online questionnaire among students enrolled in the medical school; data were further processed using quantitative and qualitative statistical analysis separately. The following scales were applied: Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (GAD-7), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and Wagnild and Young’s Resilience Scale (RS-25). Results: About one-third of the students lived with moderate or severe anxiety symptoms, almost half had moderate to severe depressive symptoms, and more than half were classified as having low or moderately low resilience. Conclusion: Our findings highlight the difficulty in maintaining high levels of resilience and that the presence of depression or anxiety would be related to lower resilience scores in medical students during remote education. Further studies are needed to establish a causal link with the pandemic.