A study of anxiety, depression and stress symptoms among Fayoum medical students during COVID-19 lockdown, Egypt

BACKGROUND: The widespread pandemic of COVID-19 virus carries not only physical hazards, but also major psychological effects especially among medical students. The aim was to investigate the psychological effects of COVID-19 on medical students and the factors affecting them. The study was carried out with an online questionnaire distributed through Google Forms for medical students at Faculty of Medicine, Egypt. The questionnaire included socio-demographic questions, validated psychometric tools for the assessment of depression, anxiety and stress (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales DASS-21) and the Impact of Event Stress Scale-Revised (IES-R) were applied. RESULTS: The total number of participants was 282 students. Percentage of participants with clinically significant depression was 75.2%, anxiety was 56.4% and stress was 52.9%. Those showed PTSD probability was 54.3%. The multivariate regression analysis revealed that IES remained significantly associated with gender and previous road accidents, depression and anxiety remained significantly associated with personal history of psychiatric illness, while stress remained significantly associated with gender and previous road accidents. CONCLUSIONS: Medical students were highly depressed, anxious and stressed during period of COVID-19 pandemic. Being a female, having previous history of psychiatric illness and previous road accident were highly associated with increasing the psychological impact of COVID-19.