Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 148 (1998-1)The Prevalence of Depression among the Medical and Non-Medical students inUAE University - 6 Dec 1997 to 7 Jan 1998Student Authors: Noura Khaled Al QassimiFaculty Supervisors: Dr. J. BrebnerAbstract:Objective To assess the prevalence of depression among UAE medical students andnon-medical students.Methods Cross sectional descriptive study was carried out among female students inUAE university. The questionnaires were designed from the Beck depression scale,which is originally made for general people, in addition to questions that added toevaluate the satisfaction of students in relation with their studies and livingenvironment in hostels. Finally the survey assesses the practices that students makein order to relief themselves from depressive mood.Results The data was collected, where the response was 100% but there were fewquestions that were left and haven't been answered, but as major problems, therewere no problems other than the unanswered questions. The results appeared aswhat was expected; although that both of the groups suffer from their studies and notsatisfied, the medical students were the highest in score (60.6%), and 39.4% for theother group. As the problems that they face in their studies were higher in the medicalstudents from different faculties were higher. For the degree of depression, themedical students fall in the category of having depression less than mild (54.1% and45.5% for the non-medical students) and the mild degree was in the non-medicalstudents (64.7%, 35.3% for the medical students), but for the moderate one was forboth equally 1:1 each in frequency, and there was no body who is in the severe formof depression. As a coping strategy, both groups scored the same in the first 4attitudes which are talk to best friend, read Qura'an, cry and isolate themselves awayfrom the people.Conclusion: In conclusion, it is recommended that these type of symptoms shouldreally be taken care of, by holding seminars that teach the student how can she copewith herself as educational programs, and meetings should be held from the universityand the hostel sides to discuss the problems that the students really face and sufferfrom and to be solved.