Prevalence and severity of somatic symptoms, depression and anxiety among medical students at the Arabian Gulf University : comparison between second and sixth year

Abstract EN

The current study assessed the prevalence and severity of somatic symptoms, depression and anxiety among students at the Arabian Gulf University.

Comparison of symptoms was between Year 2 and Year 6 medical students.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study using a convenient sample size of (N=160) where n=80 from Year 2 and n=80 from Year 6.

Assessment involved a socio-demographic and three self-report questionnaires.

The Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15) for detection of somatic symptoms, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for detection of depression symptoms and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) to detect generalized anxiety disorder.

Results: Somatic symptoms were the highest among medical students with a prevalence of 46%.

Anxiety symptoms came second with a prevalence of 39.4%.

The levels of moderate to severe depression symptoms were the lowest with a prevalence of 18.8%.

No statistically significant differences were obtained between groups.

However, Year 2 students reported higher levels of somatic symptoms while Year 6 students reported higher anxiety; depression symptom levels were identical in both years.

Female students reported higher levels of all three symptoms compared to males (p< 0.05).

Conclusion: Medical students had moderate levels of somatic and anxiety symptoms and low levels of depression symptoms.