Mental Health of Medical Students in Different Levels of Training

Objectives: medical education and training can directly contribute tothe development of psychological distress in medical students. this canlead to catastrophic consequences such as impaired academic performance,impaired competency, medical errors and attrition from medicalschool. this study aimed to assess the prevalence of psychologicalmorbidity among iranian medical students.methods: this was a cross-sectional study. samples of medical studentsin different levels of training (basic science, clinical clerkship,internship, and residency stage) were entered into the study. the 12-item general health questionnaire (ghq-12) was used to measurepsychological morbidity. both univariate and multivariate analyses wereused to report on findings.results: in all, 220 medical students were invited to take part in thestudy. of these, 192 students agreed to fill in the questionnaire. themean age of respondents was 25.4 (sd = 5.2) and 53% were female.overall 49.5% of the students scored above the threshold on theghq-12 (score > 3.5). the results obtained from logistic regressionanalysis indicated that female gender and level of training were themost significant contributing factors to increased psychological distress[or for female gender = 2.99; or for the basic science group = 6.73].conclusions: psychological distress appears to be common in medicalstudents and significantly varies by gender and level of training. thepsychological well-being of medical students needs to be more carefullyaddressed, and closer attention to eliminating the risk factors is criticalto prevent consequent adverse outcomes.