Prevalence and contributing factors of depression, anxiety, and stress among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang

Introduction: Depression, anxiety and stress have become increasingly important public health issue globally. The nature of the medical program makes medical students more vulnerable to mental health problems including, depression, anxiety and stress. Objective: This study aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated with depression, anxiety, and stress among medical students in UPM-Serdang. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 447 medical students studying in the faculty of Medicine and health sciences UPM Serdang. Simple random sampling proportionate to size was adopted for the purpose of data collection. Data was collected by using self-administered and validated questionnaire consisted of 5 sections namely, socio-demographic factors, social support received from family members and friends, presence of co-morbidity, previous history of resolved mental problem and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale DASS- 21. The questions were in the form of open ended questions, likert and nominal scales. The data was analyzed by using the statistical computer software ‘Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)’ version 22. Three types of analysis were involved, descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analysis. The bivariate analysis (Chi-square or (Fisher’s Exact test) was used to determine the association between mental health (depression, anxiety and stress) and the independent variables. Meanwhile, multiple logistic regression was used to determine the predictive model for depression, anxiety and stress among the respondents. The level of significance was set at p<0.05. Results: The median age of the respondents was 22 (IQR=3). Majority of them were female (72.3%), Malay (66.9%), had family income of 5000RM (IQR=5000) and tertiary paternal (54.6%) and maternal (48.8%) education. The prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress were (31.1%), (53.9%), (26.0%) respectively. The final predictive model showed that the occurrence of depression among the respondents was determined by social support received from family members and friends. Meanwhile, development of anxiety was predicted by second year of education, social support received from family members. On the other hand, occurrence of stress was determined by ethnicity (Chinese), fourth year of education, social support received from family members, presence of chronic disease and previous history of mental problem. Conclusion: Compared to depression and stress, anxiety showed the highest prevalence among the respondents. Social support received from family members was a significant predicting factor for depression, anxiety and stress. Family members must be made aware on the seriousness of mental health problems and their important roles in providing support to prevent development of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and stress among students.

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