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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...

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Autores principales: Zhong, Yaqin, Schroeder, Elizabeth, Gao, Yuexia, Guo, Xiaojun, Gu, Yuanyuan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
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.
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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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