Predictors of mental distress among undergraduate health science students of Hawassa University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Hawassa, SNNPR, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
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Date
2020
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Bedaso, A.
Duko, B.
Yeneabat, T.
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Annals of General Psychiatry, 2020; 19(1):1-5
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Introduction: Mental distress is a mental health problem which includes anxiety, depression and somatic symptoms. Mental health problems affect society as a whole and no group is immune to mental disorders; however, students have significantly high level of mental distress than their community peers.
Objective: The aim of the study is to assess magnitude of mental distress and its predictors among undergraduate health science students of Hawassa University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, SNNPR, Ethiopia.
Methods: Institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 311 students. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Data were collected using pre-tested and structured self-administered questionnaire. Mental distress among students was assessed using SRQ-20, which is validated in Ethiopia. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression model was fitted to identify predictors of mental distress among students. An adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was computed to determine the level of significance with P-value less than 0.05.
Result: A total of 309 study participants were interviewed with a response rate of 99.34%. Among the total respondents 105 (34%) of them were found to have mental distress. In multiple logistic regression analysis, poor social support (AOR = 5.28; 95% CI (2.176–12.84) and current substances use (AOR = 12.83, 95% CI (7.13–23.13), were significant predictors of mental distress among respondents.
Conclusion and recommendations: The overall magnitude of mental distress among students was found to be high. Therefore, it is recommended that mental distress needs due attention and remedial action from policy-makers, college officials, non-governmental organizations, parents, students and other concerned bodies.
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Copyright 2020. The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)