An Assessment of Mental Health Status of Undergraduate Medical Trainees in the University of Calabar, Nigeria: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND:The mental health status of medical students has been proven to be poor compared to their peers in other disciplines and has led to grave personal and professional consequences. This subject has however remained largely unexplored in our medical school.AIM:The study was therefore conducted to assess the prevalence of mental health of medical students in the University of Calabar, Cross river state, Nigeria.METHODOLOGY:A descriptive cross-sectional survey of 451 randomly selected medical students from the pre-clinical and clinical levels of study in the University of Calabar. A self administered questionnaire including the GHQ12 was used to elicit information from the respondents. A score of ≥ 3 suggested poor mental while a score < 3 represented good mental health. Data were summarized using proportions, and χ2 test was used to explore associations between categorical variables. Level of significance was set at p < 0.05.RESULTS:The mean age of the respondents was 23.4 ± 4.3 years, 63.8% were males, 34.8% were from the preclinical and 65.2% from clinical levels of study. Based on the GHQ categorisation, 39.2% had a poor mental health status, compared to 60.8% with good mental health status. The factors significantly associated with poor mental health, were recent experience of mistreatment by trainers or colleagues, perceived inadequate monthly allowance and perception that medical training is stressful (p < 0.05).CONCLUSION:With more than a third of undergraduate medical trainees with traits of poor mental health, provision of accessible mental health services/counselling is strongly recommended early in their training.

Mental Health Status Among Moroccan Medical Students at the Cadi Ayyad University

“…The mental health status of medical trainees has long been recognized as a cause for concern in both developed and developing countries [11][12][13][14]. The mean age of the respondents was consistent with similar studies carried out in medical schools [15][16][17][18], in which the mean age was 22.2 ± 2.149 and majority of the students were between the ages 19-31 years. Overall, two out of three of the respondents were female, this is quite different from what was obtained in a study conducted in Japan which reported that 66.3% were male and 33.7% were female [19].…”

“…Assessment of psychological morbidity or mental health status of the respondents using the GHQ12 was a key finding in this study. The prevalence of psychological morbidity was 66.76%.This was found to be high compared to other studies [18,19,22,23]. However, studies conducted among medical students in Australia, England and Malaysia, which used the same cut off as the present study, showed comparable results as observed in the present study [14,24,25] Table 2.…”

Prevalence and correlates of psychiatric morbidity, comorbid anxiety and depression among medical students in public and private tertiary institution in a Nigerian state: a cross-sectional analytical study

“…reported that 39.2% of medical student in Calabar had poor mental health [ 13 ]. Previous research has identified long hours of study, and the impositions of emotional burden [ 14 ], high workload [ 15 ] and considerable financial pressure as the principal stressors. Omigbodun et al .…”

Undergraduate medical education in Sierra Leone: a qualitative study of the student experience

“…Recent studies from Nigeria linked higher stress levels amongst undergraduate medical students to inadequate educational resources, family pressure and financial difficulties but did not discuss attrition rates [ 43 , 44 ]. Medical graduates interviewed in a South African study also noted the impact that exams and patient exposure had on them emotionally, and the need for support mechanisms, but did not comment on attrition rates either [ 22 ].…”