Social support and common mental disorder among medical students

Abstract

AbstrAct:Introduction: Different kinds of psychological distress have been identified for students in the health field, especially in the medical school. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of mental suffering among medical students in the Southeastern Brazil and asses its association with social support. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study. Structured questionnaires were applied for students from the 1 st up to the 6 th years of the medical school of Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho", assessing demographic variables related to aspects of graduation and adaptation to the city. Psychological suffering was defined as a common mental disorder (CMD) assessed by the Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). Social support was assessed by the social support scale of the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS). The association between the outcome and explanatory variables was assessed by the χ 2 test and Logistic Regression, for the multivariate analyses, using p ≤ 0.05. Results: The response rate was of 80.7%, with no differences between sample and the population regarding gender (p = 0.78). The average age was 22 years old (standard deviation -SD = 2.2), mainly women (58.2%) and students who were living with friends (62%). The prevalence of CMD was 44.9% (95%CI 40.2 -49.6). After the multivariate analyses, the explanatory variables that were associated with CMD were: feeling rejected in the past year (p < 0.001), thinking about leaving medical school (p < 0.001) and "interaction" in the MOS scale (p = 0.002). Conclusions: The prevalence of CMD among medical students was high and insufficient social support was an important risk factor. Our findings suggest that interventions to improve social interaction among those students could be beneficial, decreasing the prevalence of CMD in this group.

Mental Well-being, and Coping Strategies during Stress for Preclinical Medical Students in Vietnam

“…Other sources of assistance outside of the family, such as social support, are indespensabe in helping students deal with stressful events. This is supported by previous studies (Fares et al, 2016;Park et al, 2015;Silva, Cerqueira & Lima, 2014;Sreeramareddy et al, 2007;Zamani-Alavijeh et al, 2017), in which students who perceived having high levels of social support and felt satisfied with it were more likely to choose active rather than passive coping strategies to respond to stress.…”

Common mental disorder and its association with academic performance among Debre Berhan University students, Ethiopia

“…On the other hand, it was approximately two to three times the prevalence of CMD in Ethiopian university students [60], Chilean university students [61], and Peruvian college students [62]. Moreover, the current study finding was higher than the study report by Silva et al [63], Volcan et al [64], and Haregu et al [65]. …”

Revisão integrativa: sofrimento psíquico em estudantes universitários e fatores associados

“…Outros cinco estudos, realizados em países desenvolvidos, encontraram prevalências superiores a 40% [46][47][48][49][50] . Dados obtidos pelo SRQ-20, indicaram variação nas prevalências de sofrimento psíquico de 33,7 a 49,1%, sendo em seis pesquisas brasileiras [7][8][9][10][11]51 de 33,7 a 44,9% e em dois na Etiópia 52,53 de 40,9 a 49,1%. O instrumento K-10 foi utilizado em cinco pesquisas [54][55][56][57][58][59] , com prevalências acima de 50% de sofrimento em dois estudos com alunos de medicina na Arábia Saudita (57% e 63%) 54,55 e abaixo de 30% em estudo realizado nos EUA 56 e Austrália 57 .…”

“…Porém, a prevalência deste sofrimento varia segundo a população estudada e os métodos utilizados nas pesquisas 3 . Estudos realizados com universitários brasileiros, especialmente os da área da saúde, indicam variação de TMC de 18,5% a 44,9% [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] . TMC são estados mistos de depressão e ansiedade, caracterizados pela presença de sintomas como insônia, fadiga, irritabilidade, esquecimento, dificuldade de concentração e queixas somáticas 12 e podem ser investigados por instrumentos de screening.…”