Assessment of mental health and various strategies among Health Professions' (HP) students: A cross sectional study in King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences

Background: The education environment of medical colleges is known to have a burdensome effect on the overall mental health of the students. This study aimed to investigate the immediate impact of the medical education environment on mental health and quality of life among Health Profession students and to identify various coping strategies used by students to mitigate the stress.

Materials and methods: An online survey was conducted between April 1 and May 10, 2021, using a validated questionnaire based on DASS-42, employing a snowball sampling technique.

Results: A total of 338 students filled the questionnaire. The respondents had a high level of depression and anxiety scores, categorized as very severe which were significantly different among level of education (P < .05), for example, 88.9% of sixth year students had very severe depression compared to just 37% of first year ones. Gender-wise very severe scores varied from lowest 45.8% to 70.3% with comparable results for both males and females. Additionally, more than 30% of the students listed that the amount of material to be covered, lack of time to study the material to be tested, heavy demand to study, concern about trying to learn all the content, and competitiveness among students to be the top reason which affect their mental state of mental health.

Conclusions: This study identifies the need to provide the free professional and psychological services to help cope with stress to the health profession students.