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Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects
Depressive symptoms are prevalent in university students and may impair their social, educational, and economic transition into adulthood. Identifying the factors that determine depressive symptoms is crucial for the design of effective policy interventions. This study aims to examine the associatio...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7828636/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33451118 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020633 |
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author | Zhong, Yaqin Schroeder, Elizabeth Gao, Yuexia Guo, Xiaojun Gu, Yuanyuan |
author_facet | Zhong, Yaqin Schroeder, Elizabeth Gao, Yuexia Guo, Xiaojun Gu, Yuanyuan |
author_sort | Zhong, Yaqin |
collection | PubMed |
description | Depressive symptoms are prevalent in university students and may impair their social, educational, and economic transition into adulthood. Identifying the factors that determine depressive symptoms is crucial for the design of effective policy interventions. This study aims to examine the associations between health literacy and depressive symptoms among medical students, and to evaluate the effect of different types of social support as a potential mediator. A cross-sectional survey of medical students was conducted through convenience sampling in East China. Associations between variables were explored using OLS and the mediation effect was estimated using the Karlson, Holm and Breen method. A total of 746 valid questionnaires were collected. The prevalence of depressive symptoms among the sample was 32.4%. Higher health literacy levels and social supports were significantly associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Social support partially mediated the association between health literacy and depressive symptoms, accounting for a 54.03% of the total effect size. These findings suggest that interventions for medical student mental wellbeing could improve health literacy. Whilst family support reflects greatest impact, Universities can also lead and innovate novel interventions for this critical stage of life. Future research can extend this study by exploring the dynamic interactions between health literacy, depressive symptoms, and other sources of social support. Comparisons of these findings across the different regions of China and in other university subject disciplines are also warranted. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7828636 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78286362021-01-25 Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects Zhong, Yaqin Schroeder, Elizabeth Gao, Yuexia Guo, Xiaojun Gu, Yuanyuan Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Depressive symptoms are prevalent in university students and may impair their social, educational, and economic transition into adulthood. Identifying the factors that determine depressive symptoms is crucial for the design of effective policy interventions. This study aims to examine the associations between health literacy and depressive symptoms among medical students, and to evaluate the effect of different types of social support as a potential mediator. A cross-sectional survey of medical students was conducted through convenience sampling in East China. Associations between variables were explored using OLS and the mediation effect was estimated using the Karlson, Holm and Breen method. A total of 746 valid questionnaires were collected. The prevalence of depressive symptoms among the sample was 32.4%. Higher health literacy levels and social supports were significantly associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Social support partially mediated the association between health literacy and depressive symptoms, accounting for a 54.03% of the total effect size. These findings suggest that interventions for medical student mental wellbeing could improve health literacy. Whilst family support reflects greatest impact, Universities can also lead and innovate novel interventions for this critical stage of life. Future research can extend this study by exploring the dynamic interactions between health literacy, depressive symptoms, and other sources of social support. Comparisons of these findings across the different regions of China and in other university subject disciplines are also warranted. MDPI 2021-01-13 2021-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7828636/ /pubmed/33451118 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020633 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Zhong, Yaqin Schroeder, Elizabeth Gao, Yuexia Guo, Xiaojun Gu, Yuanyuan Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects |
title | Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects |
title_full | Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects |
title_fullStr | Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects |
title_full_unstemmed | Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects |
title_short | Social Support, Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms among Medical Students: An Analysis of Mediating Effects |
title_sort | social support, health literacy and depressive symptoms among medical students: an analysis of mediating effects |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7828636/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33451118 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020633 |
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