Emotional disorders among medical students

Abstract

Reports on the mental health of medical students show an average of 10-25% of the students seeking psychiatric consultation of treatment during their enrollment. In the present study, 158 third-year medical students responded to a questionnaire before and after their psychiatric clerkship. The sex ratio of male-female students was 2 to 1. Twenty students (12.7%) indicated that they sought psychiatric help. Two-thirds of the students who acknowledged having consulted a psychiatrist were female whose most common disorder was depressive neurosis. The students revealed the presence of personality, marital and family conflicts, as well as emotional difficulties related to studying. There was no significant difference between the prevalence of emotional disorders in third year medical students over the ten-year span 1969-1979.