CLINICAL STRUCTURE AND PREVALENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS IN INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL STUDENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Educational migration has been gaining momentum in recent years. At the same time, international students are in a group of risk for mental health disorders, since they face difficulties in psychosociocultural adaptation. In addition, researches indicate that medical students have mental health problems more often than students of other specialties and the general population. The purpose of the article was to identify the clinical structure and prevalence of mental health disorders among international medical students based on the analysis of modern scientific literature. Prenosological disorders, emotional burnout, as well as anxiety-depressive spectrum disorders and sleep disorders, suicidal thoughts, internet addiction, substance use are most common among this group of students. It has also been found that stress contributes to the appearance of anxietydepressive symptoms in international medical students, which can become the psychopathological basis of subsequent mental disorders. The main stressful factors are: the linguistic barrier, unusual climatic conditions and food, separation from parents, high academic workload, financial difficulties and relationship problems. The incidence of mental health disorders among international students most often decreases as they adapt and move through the courses of study, while among medical students, on the contrary, it increases. However, in the group of international medical students, this pattern is not always traced. Thus, international medical students are the most vulnerable group of students in terms of the risk of developing mental health disorders, which makes it important to develop and implement specific measures for the early diagnosis and prevention of mental health problems.