Medical students’ mental health state during pandemic COVID-19 in Indonesia

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has not only had an impact on health problems, but also brought many changes in other aspects of human life, including the education sector. Difficulty in adapting with the learning process can affect the mental health, especially medical students who are quite susceptible to depression and anxiety. We aimed to aims to provide an overview of mental health problems in medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The method used was an online cross-sectional survey using student characteristics instruments, the GAD-7 and PHQ-2 questionnaires. Respondents were 7949 medical students from 49 medical faculties in Indonesia from February to May 2021. All data were analyzed by univariate and bivariate statistics to see the relationship between several variables using SPSS version 22.0. Results: The majority of respondents were women (69.4%) with an average age of 20.9±2.1 years and domiciled in Java (63.4%). The survey was joined by students from all years of education and the most followed by students in the second year (20.3%). Based on the GAD-7 questionnaire, 3471 respondents (43.7%) experienced symptoms of anxiety (mild, moderate, severe) and the most experienced mild anxiety (29.8%), while from the PHQ-2 questionnaire it was found that 1332 respondents (16.8%) experienced symptoms of depression. Analysis of the mean GAD-7 and PHQ-2 on several factors (gender, year of education, education phase, and place of domicile showed a significant relationship (p<0.05), except for the PHQ-2 score which was not significant for place of domicile (p=0.06). Conclusion: The results of this survey describe the mental health conditions of medical students in Indonesia during the pandemic. This study emphasizes the importance of early detection, support, and mental health services to improve the ability and resilience of medical students in dealing with various changes during the COVID-19 pandemic.