Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in Sudanese Medical Students: A Cross Sectional Study on Role of Quality of Life and Social Support

Abstract

We aimed to find out the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress among medical students in a developing country, and to find the possible role of social support and quality of life in developing depression, anxiety, and stress.We did a cross sectional study in medical students of faculty of medicine in Khartoum, Sudan. We did a clustered random sampling in students from the second to sixth year and collected 500 questionnaires of which 487 were suitable for analysis. The data collection tool composed of three questionnaires; MOS social support survey, Depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS21), and WHO quality of life brief (WHOQOLB) questionnaire. More than 50% of respondents had different grades of depression, anxiety, and stress where 21%, 22%, and 16% had moderate degree of depression, anxiety, and stress respectively. Quality of environment and physical health were the major determinant of depression, anxiety, and stress (R=0.252-0.465, P values <0.001). From the four domains of social support assessed by MOS survey, there was significant association only between positive social interaction domain and depression (R=0.354, P<0.001). There was no significant association between social support and stress and anxiety. There was no significant differences in depression scores among different academic years (P=0.246). However, stress and anxiety showed significant differences in different academic years, notably between the middle years, and second and final years (P=0.043 and 0.00 respectively). The quality of environment and physical health seems to play a key role in student mental health.