Stress and depression among medical students: Across sectional study at a medical college in Saudi Arabia

Objectives: To determine prevalence of stress among undergraduate medical students and to observe an association between stress and academic year, grades, regularity and physical problems. Methodology: All 600 registered students at College of Medicine, King Saud University in years 1,2,3,4 and 5 were enrolled in the study, and asked to complete a stress inventory called Kessler10. Results: There were 494 responses with the response rate of 83%. The prevalence of stress of all types was found among 57% and severe stress among 19.6% study subjects. There was highly statistically significant association between year of study and stress levels, (p<0.0001). The association between academic grades of study subjects and their stress levels is not statistically significant, as distribution of prevalence of stress is not significantly different across each of the four academic grades (p=0.46). The main source of stress found to be their studies (60.3%), followed by home environment (2.8%) and 36.9% of study population did not mention any source of stress. Conclusion: High levels of psychosocial distress was found in our students during the initial three years of their course. It poses additional challenges for students' support services delivery which may require to address mental health problems along with common health strategies for our students.