Depression and anxiety in Med students during isolation for COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: On account of COVID-19 pandemic, all non-essential activities were suspended in Mexico, including educational activities. Due to this reason students had to adapt to online education and since then, there have been an increase in psychological pathologies like anxiety, insomnia and depression.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of depression, anxiety and insomnia on the medical students of Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method: Beetween May 18th and June 3rd an observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of medical students, through a sociodemographic survey and the Goldberg general health questionnaire of 28 items.

Results: 177 students were part of the study, from wich 98.9% were in isolation, 125 women and 51 men of the six academic generations of the career. Regarding the anxiety and insomnia subscale of the Goldberg General Health Questionnaire, 35.8% of the students presented symptoms. On the other hand, in the Depression subscale, 8% of the students presented symptoms.

A significant difference was also observed between the academic years of the participants (p = 0.001), with a higher percentage of cases in the fifth year (81.8%) versus the sixth year that showed the lowest percentage of cases (17.2%).

Conclusions: Anxiety in fifth-year medical students was higher than the rest of those evaluated. This group of students was beginning their rotations in clinical education, a training stage of great relevance for this population, and was interrupted for a few months by the health authorities, with the intention of reducing the spread of COVID-19 in students. It is a task of education and health authorities to ensure educational quality and these psychological repercussions on health professionals in training.