Prevalence and Correlates of Depression, Anxiety and, Stress with Academic Self-Concept among Medical Students

Abstract

Psychological distress among medical students is commonly observed during their education and is generally related to poor academic self-perception. Many studies have reported that medical students experience significantly high levels of distress, particularly depression, Anxiety and, stress during their study and training/internship period. However, there are very limited studies investigating the relationship between the academic distress and academic self-concept along with exploring which domain of distress can severely affect the students’ academic self-concept (ASC). In this research, a cross-sectional correlational research design was used to examine the prevalence of distress as well as its relationship with ASC. A total of 50 Undergraduate Medical students from Gorakhpur city were invited to participate in the study. After getting their consent, DASS-21 developed by Lovibond et al. (1995) and Reynolds’ academic self-concept scale (1988) were administered to them. The result revealed that the prevalence rates of depression, anxiety and stress were different among the participants as we found that 44% of participants reported depression, 42% reported stress, and 32% reported anxiety. The result also reported a significant negative relation between psychological distress and academic self-concept.