Depression Levels of Undergraduate and Clerkship Medical Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brought complex challenges for global public health, research and medical communities. Medical students face unique challenges during the pandemic, including disruption of pre-clinical and clinical training. Many students had distance learning as their main course delivery mode, in-person activities were especially retained, clerkship students undergo new protocols to increased safety measures. This study aims to identify the depression levels of undergraduate and clerkship medical students to create proper and effective strategies to build good mental status among medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a cross-sectional study. The survey was conducted using an online questionnaire to assess respondents' identity, demographic data, family history, perceptions about online/offline learning, and the researchers used the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) test to measure the depression levels of the subjects. The subjects of this study were 164 medical students, divided into two groups, 94 final year undergraduate students and 70 final year clerkship students who were still doing their clinical rotations at the hospital. The findings of this study informed that the average depression levels was 5.88 for undergraduate students and 7.03 for clerkship students. The BDI-II score was higher among clerkship students than undergraduate students. However, the statistical analysis showed no difference (p=0.435) in BDI-II scores between clerkship and undergraduate students. A close approach and continuous observation are needed because the higher the BDI-II score indicates the higher the depression levels.