College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Department of Pediatrics, King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Department of Pediatrics, King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Prince Abdullah Bin Khaled Coeliac Disease Chair, Faculty of Medicine, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia.
J Infect Public Health. 2020 May;13(5):687-691. doi: 10.1016/j.jiph.2020.01.005. Epub 2020 Jan 27.
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) outbreak in 2014 was associated with high public anxiety in the affected countries. Media speculations may have increased this psychological distress. The healthcare community was the most distressed because they were at the highest risk of infection. This study is the first to explore MERS-CoV epidemic impact on medical students' perception and determinants of their psychological distress during this outbreak.
We randomly selected and surveyed 200 students from the College of Medicine at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A predesigned questionnaire was answered by participants, and the collected data were statistically analyzed.
One hundred and seventy-four (87%) responded. Female students had a significantly higher mean stress level than males (P < 0.001). Participants had a mean GAD score of 2.7 ± 3.1 and a median of 2. Perceived sufficiency of information score was the highest mean and median (17.4 ± 4.2 and 18 respectively). College and hospital announcements were the most common source of information (25.4%). One hundred and thirty-four (77%) reported minimal anxiety, thirty-two (18.4%) reported mild anxiety, 8 (4.6%) reported moderate anxiety, and none of them reported severe anxiety (score >14). The stress level (as reported on 1-10 scale) shows significant correlation with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) score. We found in this study that significant predictors in our model, in terms of more significant to the least, were: an increased self-report on hygienic habits, self-reported social avoidance, the generalized anxiety score and finally being female gander while other variables including numbers of resources access, agreeing with public fear and knowledge score on MERS-CoV all were found to be non-significant. However, the number of accessed resources, as per students, has borderline significant correlation with higher self-reported anxiety from MERS-CoV.
Medical students' psychological needs during the MERS-CoV outbreak should be addressed appropriately. Our results highlight the need to establish psychological support programs for medical students during an infectious disease outbreak.
2014 年中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒（MERS-CoV）疫情在受影响国家引起了公众高度焦虑。媒体猜测可能增加了这种心理困扰。医疗保健界最感到痛苦，因为他们感染的风险最高。这项研究首次探讨了 MERS-CoV 疫情对医学生在此期间的心理困扰的看法和决定因素的影响。
我们随机选择并调查了沙特阿拉伯利雅得沙特国王大学医学院的 200 名学生。参与者回答了预先设计的问卷，收集的数据进行了统计分析。
174 人（87%）做出回应。女学生的平均压力水平明显高于男学生（P<0.001）。参与者的 GAD 平均得分为 2.7±3.1，中位数为 2。信息充足感得分最高，平均为 17.4±4.2，中位数为 18。学院和医院的公告是最常见的信息来源（25.4%）。134 人（77%）报告焦虑程度最小，32 人（18.4%）报告轻度焦虑，8 人（4.6%）报告中度焦虑，无人报告严重焦虑（评分>14）。压力水平（按 1-10 分制报告）与广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD-7）评分呈显著相关。我们发现，在我们的模型中，按重要性从大到小排列的显著预测因子为：自我报告的卫生习惯增加、自我报告的社交回避、广义焦虑评分和最后是女性性别，而其他变量，包括资源访问次数、对 MERS-CoV 的公众恐惧和知识评分都被发现无统计学意义。然而，学生认为获得的资源数量与对 MERS-CoV 的自我报告焦虑程度呈边缘显著相关。
应适当满足 MERS-CoV 爆发期间医学生的心理需求。我们的研究结果强调了在传染病爆发期间为医学生建立心理支持计划的必要性。
