Psychological health and sources of stress in first year undergraduate students at Gulf medical university, Ajman

ABSTRACT

Gulf Medical University, Ajman [GMU], is an international university where students from different parts of the world, cultures and educational backgrounds study together. First year students have to adjust to both a new learning environment and to a new culture during their training in GMU, and this can be stressful. Our objective was to assess the psychological health of our first year students using a validated tool and to study the various causes of psychological distress. A questionnaire based survey was carried out during January 2011 among 125 first year students registered in various programs for the academic year 2010-2011 at GMU. Psychological health was assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire [GHQ12]. A 22-item questionnaire was used to identify the sources of stress. 116 students participated giving a response rate of 92.8%. The overall prevalence of psychological morbidity was found to be 33.6% among the first year undergraduate students at GMU, using a GHQ cutoff of 4/5. The prevalence of psychological morbidity was higher in female students [37%] compared to males [31%] and higher in students who had a language of instruction other than English in high school [41%] compared to those who had studied in English [31%]. Students in the medicine [MBBS] program were found to have the most psychological morbidity followed by those in Physiotherapy, Dentistry and Pharmacy programs. Worries regarding future and high parental expectations were major causes of stress for most students. Total stress scores and academics-related domain scores were significantly associated with psychological morbidity. Psychological morbidity is seen in 1 in 3 students in the first year in the Gulf Medical University, Ajman, UAE. Important sources of stress are worries regarding the future and high parental expectations. Psychological morbidity was significantly associated with academic causes of stress and family problems