Comparison of depression, anxiety, and stress between public and private university medical students

CONTEXT: Depression, anxiety, and stress are common among medical students because of hectic and heavy studies. AIM: This study was carried out to determine the magnitude of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS) among undergraduate medical students and its relationship with its causative factors in public and private universities. SETTING AND DESIGN: The study tool was DASS (Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21) which was distributed through the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, adopting a multistage cluster sampling method for an observational study design. SUBJECTS AND DATA: Data from undergraduate medical students (N = 337) was collected from public and private medical colleges in Saudi Arabia. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Independent t-tests and analysis of covariance were applied to analyze the data. RESULTS: There was a significant difference in depression with a higher mean score in private versus public medical students (8.38±5.93 vs 6.34±5.46, p=0.001), anxiety (9.49±5.12 vs 7.91±5.00, p=0.005), and stress (9.11±5.11 vs 7.93±5.02, p=0.035). There was a significant difference in the level of anxiety between second- and third-years students (p =0.01). CONCLUSION: Private medical university students have significantly higher depression, anxiety, and stress levels compared to public universities. More studies are needed to explore the causes of this psychological impact.