Mental problems and risk factors for depression among medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study.

Prevalence of depression is high among medical students and several mental problems are identified as risk factors. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic causes difficulties that could adversely affect mental health. However, data concerning prevalence of mental problems, and whether or not these problems remain risk factors for depression during the COVID-19 pandemic in medical students are scarce. To investigate the prevalence of depression, social media addiction, game addiction, sleep quality, eating disorder risk, and perceived stress among Thai medical students, risk factors for depression were investigated. Online surveys via our faculty's learning portals were advertized to medical students who engaged online learning and 224 respondents provided complete data. Study-related medical students' data were collected using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 for depression, the Social-Media Addiction Screening Scale for social media addiction, the Game Addiction Screening Test for game addiction, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index for sleep quality, the Eating Attitudes Test for eating disorder risk, and the Perceived Stress Scale for perceived stress. Depression was reported in 35.7% of medical students, social-media addiction in 22.3%, game addiction in 4.5%, eating disorder risk in 4.9%, poor sleep quality in 80.8%, and moderate-to-high perceived stress in 71.4%. The independent predictors of depression were lower grade point average, social media addiction, and moderate-to-high perceived stress. A high prevalence of depression, stress, and poor sleep was found among medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical students who are stressed, have lower grades, and/or who are addicted to social media warrant depression screening.

Prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in students 23 months after tsunami.

OBJECTIVE: To study the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the 4th-9th grade students in an affected school 23 months after tsunami. METHOD: Two-stage screening procedure was used in a diagnostic study designed to identify post-traumatic stress disorder in the 4th-9th grade students in a school in Takaupa district, Phang Nga province, 23 months after the 2004 tsunami. Impact of Events Scale (IES) was used as a screening questionnaire in the first stage. In the second stage, the students were assessed by a psychiatrist to identify PTSD according to DSM-IV criteria. SPSS 10.0, inferential statistics and Chi-square test were used to analyze the data. RESULT: A total of 436 students participated in the study. Forty of them were diagnosed with PTSD. The prevalence of PTSD was 15.1%. The sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value of IES were 0.75, 0.54 and 0.92 respectively. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of PTSD in students in a school 23 months after tsunami was 15.1%.