Prevalence of anxiety and depression in medical students of a public sector medical college in Islamabad and coping mechanisms adopted

The objectives of this study were to find out the frequency of anxiety and depression in medical students and various coping mechanisms adopted by them to identify the coping trends and to stress the need of equipping these students with positive coping tools to deal with anxiety and depression. A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based observational study was conducted on a population of 500 medical students of Federal Medical and Dental College, Islamabad. The duration of the study was three months. By using the WHO sample size calculator, taking the confidence level 95%, anticipated population proportion 70% and absolute precision required 7%, the sample size was calculated at 165. The samples were collected by non probability consecutive sampling via a questionnaire. In the study, two instruments were used: 1) Aga Khan University Anxiety and Depression Scale (AKUADS), and 2) Brief Cope Inventory. Self-administered questionnaires were filled by the students and the data collected from these questionnaires was analysed on SPSS version 19. Out of the sample size of 165 (98 female, 67 male) students, excluding 12 students with previous history of mental and physical illness, the prevalence of depressed students found after calculating their scores according to the Aga Khan Anxiety and Depression Scale (AKUADS score >= 19) was 95 (57.57%). The most used positive coping mechanisms by these students were religion (5.55 +/- 1.91), acceptance (5.28 +/- 1.56), planning (5.27 +/- 1.58) and active coping (4.85 +/- 1.45). The most used negative coping mechanisms were self-blame (5.52 +/- 1.83), self-distraction (5.29 +/- 1.56), and venting (4.67 +/- 1.49). The high presence of negative coping mechanisms indicates the urgency of the need for proper counselling and guidance of medical students about dealing correctly with anxiety and depression.