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Prevalence of mental health issues amongst slovak and international medical students at university of pavol jozef Šafárik: A cross-sectional study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

J. Dragasek  and
M. Seabrook
J. Dragasek*
Affiliation:
1st Dept. Of Psychiatry, University of P. J. Safarik, Kosice, Slovak Republic
M. Seabrook
Affiliation:
Faculty Of Medicine, University of P.J. Safarik, Kosice, Slovak Republic
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

The prevalence of mental health issues amongst domestic and foreign students in Slovakian medical schools and any differences between them is currently unknown.

Objectives

The goals of this paper are to determine the prevalence and extent of mental health issues among medical students at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (UPJŠ) in Kosice, Slovakia and to determine if there is a difference between domestic and foreign students’ mental health at UPJŠ.

Methods

A combined questionnaire utilizing well-known sources was distributed to UPJŠ medical students to self-assess their levels of anxiety, depression and hedonic capacity (Zung, 1965; Zung, 1971; Snaith et al., 1995). Two-tailed T-tests and regression statistical analyses were applied to determine the significance of the data and any differences.

Results

27% (n=319) and 25% (n=300) responses were collected from domestic and foreign UPJŠ medical students, respectively. 57% of domestic and 74% of foreign students screened positive for either anxiety, depression, or a combination. The 17% increased rate of anxiety and/or depression amongst foreign students when compared to domestic students was statistically significant (P<0.001). The differences between the two groups regarding hedonic tone were not statistically significant.

Conclusions

The prevalence of mental health issues amongst domestic and foreign UPJŠ medical students is much higher than the worldwide average. The higher rate of anxiety and depression observed in foreign UPJŠ medical students when compared to domestic students may be due to a reduced social support system as well as studying in a foreign country. These data suggest special support may be necessary for medical students studying abroad.

Keywords

mental healthDepressionAnxietyhedonistic capacity
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 64 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 29th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2021 , pp. S370
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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