Assessment of Factors Responsible for Stress, Anxiety and Depression Among Phase-I Students in Medical Colleges of Khulna City

Introduction: In the medical colleges, mental health of medical students is improperly affected by learning process which has unavoidably led to high incidence of depression, anxiety and stress among them. Information regarding related possible contributing factor of emotional status of recently admitted MBBS student can help necessary steps to prevent or treat any psychiatric morbidity like depression, anxiety and stress. Objectives: This study was conducted to assess the factors responsible for stress, anxiety and depression among Phase-I medical students of Khulna city. Methodology: This was a cross sectional descriptive study. Four hundred Phase-I medical students from a public and three private medical colleges of Khulna city were taken as sample. They were given structured questionnaire forms to fill up. In the first phase, the validated DASS-21, Bangla version screening tool was used to evaluate the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress among the subjects. Demographic variables such as age, gender and socioeconomic conditions of the family were also noted. Results: Among the sample, 61.1% (244) were female and 38.9% (156) were male. 47.5% (190) of the participants were from the government medical college and 52.5% (210) were from the private medical colleges. The prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress were found 39.0% (156), 28.2% (113) and 32.0% (128) respectively in total participants. The prevalence of depression in male and female students were 39.1% (61) and 60.9% (95) respectively. The prevalence of anxiety in male and female students were 46.9% (46) and 53.1% (52) respectively. Similarly, the prevalence of stress found in male and female students were 39.8% (51) and 60.2% (77) respectively. Conclusion: The common causes of stress disorder were found out to be academic troubleshot as poor performance in examinations 46.7% (187), difficulty in understanding the lesson 51% (204), difficulties in memorizing 60% (240). Medicine Today 2026, Vol.38 (2): 276-281