Volume 27, Issue 135, May 2023

Prevalence of psychological distress among students of medical colleges at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University

Ali Hassan A Ali^1,2♦, Abdullah J Alsomali³, Ahmad S Alonazi³, Ameer S Alsaad³, Meshary A Alhashemy³, Abdulaziz S Al Altheeb³

¹Anatomy Department, College of Medicine, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, KSA
²Anatomy Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt
³College of Medicine, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, KSA

^♦Corresponding author
Anatomy Department, College of Medicine, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, KSA and Anatomy Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

ABSTRACT

No group is exempt from mental diseases and mental health issues affect society as a whole; yet, students experience much higher levels of mental discomfort than their peers in the community. It can affect patient’s daily life and can lead to variety of emotional and physical problems. Since medical students have long years of studying and Nemours responsibilities included saving people’s life, we will start cross-sectional research to recognize the percentage of psychological distress among students of medical colleges in (PSAU) Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University in Al-Kharj city. This is a cross-sectional study and the sample size will be collected was from students of medical health in PSAU University. Each participant filled out an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire that asked about their socio-demographic characteristics and the (BSI 18) Brief Symptom Inventory 18, a tool for detecting psychological distress. In Addition, the (K10) 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale will measure psychological distress and anxiety. It was shown that students generally had a significant prevalence of psychological distress. The questionnaire was successfully completed by 203 students in total. Based on the BSI-18 scale, 30% of those were found to have psychological discomfort. On the somatization test, females scored considerably better than males. This conclusion requires serious efforts to be made to create appropriate screening and intervention programs that are specifically targeted at this population.

Keywords: Emotional disorders, Medical students, Prevalence, Mental health

Medical Science, 2023, 27, e224ms3026

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v27i135/e224ms3026

Published: 18 May 2023