A survey on anxiety and depression level among South Indian medical students during the COVID 19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is being a global Heath crisis. The rate of transmission of the disease is very high. At this time there is no specific vaccine or treat-ment. This widespread outbreak is also associated with psychological distress like depression and anxiety. The effect of COVID 19 on medical students is considerable. The medical students are in a transitory period which could be one of the most stressful times in a person’s life. The aim of this study is to assess the mental health of South Indian medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic and to see if there is any influence of gender on mental health. A cross sectional study was conducted using convenient sampling method. A total of 359 responses were analysed. Anxiety and depression symptoms were assessed based on four point Likert scale. GAD-7 (General Anxiety Disorder-7) scale and CES-D (Center for Epidemiology Studies for Depression) scale is used to assess anxiety and depression symptoms with a small modification respectively. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS statistics version 25. Out of 359 participants 50.4% of participants were male and 49.6% of them were females; majority of them (95.3%) were between the age group of 18-21. In total 75.5% and 74.6% of participants showed varying levels of anxiety and depression symptoms respectively. Anxiety and depression symptoms are found to have a mild association with gender. Symptoms are slightly higher among females than males.