Psychosomatic problems among medical students: a myth or reality?

BACKGROUND: Medical students are exposed to stress and this can predispose them to psychological and behavioral consequences. METHODS: Psychosomatic disorders were investigated among 385 medical students from two teaching hospitals using a stratified random sampling. The Enugu somatization Scale (ESS) was used to evaluate for presence of somatization in the participants. Statistical analysis was done with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPPS) version 19 (Chicago IL). RESULTS: A total of 385 medical students with a calculated mean age of 23.55 ± 3.33 years were recruited in this study. The prevalence of psychosomatic disorder was 55 (14.3%) with prevalence among males 33 (14.2%) and among females 22 (14.4%). Based on features, 44 (11.4%) had head features while 30 (7.8%) had body features of psychosomatic disorder respectively. Similar proportion of both males and females (about 14% each) had psychosomatic disorder. There was no statistically significant difference ([Formula: see text] = 0.002, p = 0.966). Students aged 24 years and below had similar proportion of psychosomatic disorder 38 (14.3%) with those aged over 24 years 17 (14.2%). The difference was not statistically significant ([Formula: see text] = 0.002, p = 0.964). Students from lower social class had lower proportion of psychosomatic disorder (10.6%) when compared to middle (17.2%) and upper (15.2%). The difference was equally not statistically significant ([Formula: see text] = 1.759, p = 0.415). Male students had similar likelihood of psychosomatic disorder with females (OR 1.01, 95% CI 0.56−1.82). Those had belong to middle socio-economic class were about 1.2 times (AOR 1.15, 95% CI 0.54−2.45) and lower socio-economic class about 0.6 times (AOR 0.66, 95% CI 0.31−1.37) likely to have psychosomatic disorder than those from upper socio-economic class. CONCLUSIONS: Psychosomatic disorders constitute an emerging mental health problem among medical students in Nigerian Universities. This can pose a major mental health problem if neglected. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13033-016-0105-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.