Evaluation of Depression among Medical Students of Gujarat during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic is a public health emergency with both physical and mental health risks. During this pandemic general medical complications have received the most attention, whereas only few studies address the potential direct effect on mental health of SARS-CoV-2 and the neurotropic potential. Objectives: To evaluate the depression score of an individual based on PHQ-9 scoring scale and to further classify the severity of depression among medical students. Method: It was a cross-sectional observational study, where primary quantitative data was collected using the PHQ-9 scale to assess the level of depression among the medical students of Gujarat through Google forms. Results: Most of the participants were from 1st year MBBS (>50%) and 2nd year MBBS (37%) and rest were from 3rd year. Around 29.4% students suffered from minimal depression, 34% has mild depression, 19% had moderate depression, 12% had moderately severe depression and 5.6% students suffered from severe depression. Conclusion: COVOD-19 pandemic is having impact on mental health of the medical students. Early evaluation of depression may help to decide intervention to reduce further depression among the students.

Keywords

• covid 19
• depression
• medical students
• phq 9