Incidence of Depression, Anxiety and Stress among Final-Year Medical Students versus Internship Graduates of the Faculty of Medicine, Sana’a University 2023

Abstract

Background: Depression, anxiety, and stress among medical students are significant health issues because of their impact on the challenging journey in medicine.

Objective: To assess the degree of relief in depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms attributed to the graduation of final-year medical students from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Sana’a University, Yemen, in 2023.

Methodology: A comparative cross-sectional design was employed. There were 408 volunteers, with a response rate of 99.8%. All groups were contacted electronically via patch telegram groups. There were 212 final-year respondents and 197 interns in total. The data were collected via electronic questionnaires using google doc that included socio-demographic characteristics and a validated self-administered DASS-21 questionnaire to assess depression, anxiety and stress. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 26. An Ethical Clearance Certificate, according to the Helsinki Declaration, was obtained from the Faculty of Medicine, Sana’a University.
Results: Final-year medical students had incidence rates of 74.1% depression, 66% anxiety and 62.7% stress. However, 63.96% of internship graduates were depressed, 56.9% anxious, and 45% stressed. Improvements were significant in depression (p=0.032) and stress symptoms (p<0.0001), whereas anxiety was not significantly associated (p=0.067).

Conclusion: The rates of depression, anxiety and stress symptoms were high in both cohorts. The improvement attributed to graduation was significant for depression and stress.