RESUMO
Introduction: Considerable degree of psychologicalmorbidity has been reported among medical students rangingfrom stress, interpersonal problems and suicidal ideationto psychiatric disorders. The objective of this study was todetermine the level of stress, anxiety and depression amongmedical undergraduate students of Government MedicalCollege Srinagar using DASS-21 scale.Material and methods: A cross-sectional study includingundergraduate medical students was conducted after approvalfrom instituitional ethical committee. Depression, Anxietyand Stress Scale (DASS-21) having 21 statements to assessthe level of stress, anxiety and depression among participantswas used. As there were no earlier estimates of prevalenceof stress among medical students in Kashmir, so prevalenceof 50% was assumed. With 95% confidence limits and 5 %non-response rate, sample size of 403 was calculated. Afterobtaining informed consent, 400 students were included inthe study. The data was entered into Microsoft Excel anddescriptive statistics were obtained.Results: Most of the students (55%) who participated in thestudy were females. About 67.5% were in the age-group of17-19 years, mostly belonging to rural areas(77.5%). Studentsfrom all academic years participated with majority from1st and 2nd years. Only 2.5% students had a single parent orwere orphans with majority (75%) satisfied with their sociallife. About 25% were not satisfied with their academicperformance. Prevalence of depression, anxiety and stresswas found to be 40%,50% and 37.5% respectively in medicalstudents.Conclusion: A substantial proportion of medical students aresuffering from stress, anxiety and depression revealing theirmental health issues which require urgent attention