Psychiatric morbidity among third year medical students at Ain Shams university, Cairo, Egypt

ABSTRACT

Mental distress among medical students is often reported. Different psychiatric disorders are found to be under recognized yet common and treatable among medical students. Various previous studies have shown that medical students are subjected to considerable stress over the last decades. The aim of this study was to determine the presence of clinically significant psychiatric morbidity among third year medical students, to explore the effects of the socio demographic background for these outcomes and to analyze gender differences regarding selected psychiatric morbidities. A cross sectional study is carried out among 401 third year medical students from Ain Shams University. They were assessed using Social Classification Scale and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV [SCID I] to assess psychiatric morbidity. Response rate was 98.9%. Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among our medical students sample was 59.9%. No significant statistical association between psychological morbidity and any of the socio demographic variables. The most prevalent psychiatric diagnosis was found to be depression [47.9%], followed by Generalized Anxiety Disorder [GAD] [44.9%] and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder [OCD] [44.4%]. The least prevalent of which was Anorexia Nervosa [0.7%]. Significantly high proportion of medical students [59.9%] had ongoing psychiatric condition and that proactive interventions should be addressed to encourage those medical students to seek help for their psychiatric problems. Counseling and preventive mental health services should be an integral part of the routine clinical facilities caring for medical students