A systematic review of depression and anxiety in medical students in China

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

Medical students in China face severe depression and anxiety because of their difficult circumstances, such as the long length of schooling, academic pressure, and the stress of clinical practice. Although there have been many empirical studies about depression or anxiety in medical students in China, no previous studies have conducted a related systematic review about this topic in English. This analysis can convey the general findings from China to other areas of the world.

Methods

A systematic review and meta-analysis of depression or anxiety in medical students and related determinants were conducted. Three Chinese and three English databases were searched for the review, with no restrictions on language. Articles published between January 1, 2000 and April 1, 2018 were included.

Results

Twenty-one articles investigating a total of 35,160 individual Chinese medical students were included in this review. The prevalence of depression ranged from 13.10 to 76.21% with a mean of 32.74%, and the prevalence of anxiety ranged from 8.54 to 88.30% with a mean of 27.22%. Based on the meta-analysis, gender, grade level, residence, satisfaction with current major and monthly household income per capita were significantly associated with depression. Grade level and satisfaction with current major were significantly associated with anxiety. Other risk factors were identified and described using a narrative approach.

Conclusion

The mean prevalence of depression was 32.74% amongst medical students in China, whereas the mean prevalence of anxiety was 27.22%. The determinants of depression and anxiety included individual factors, social and economic factors, and environmental factors. More measures should be taken towards at-risk medical students based on the identified risk factors.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1744-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Related collections

Most cited references 66

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): a reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test.

Michael F Scheier, Charles S. Carver, Michael W. Bridges (1994)

Research on dispositional optimism as assessed by the Life Orientation Test (Scheier & Carver, 1985) has been challenged on the grounds that effects attributed to optimism are indistinguishable from those of unmeasured third variables, most notably, neuroticism. Data from 4,309 subjects show that associations between optimism and both depression and aspects of coping remain significant even when the effects of neuroticism, as well as the effects of trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem, are statistically controlled. Thus, the Life Orientation Test does appear to possess adequate predictive and discriminant validity. Examination of the scale on somewhat different grounds, however, does suggest that future applications can benefit from its revision. Thus, we also describe a minor modification to the Life Orientation Test, along with data bearing on the revised scale's psychometric properties.

0 comments Cited 1206 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Assessing social support: The Social Support Questionnaire.

Irwin G. Sarason, Henry M. Levine, Robert B. Basham … (1983)

0 comments Cited 396 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Systematic review of depression, anxiety, and other indicators of psychological distress among U.S. and Canadian medical students.

Liselotte Dyrbye, Raju Thomas, Tait Shanafelt (2006)

To systematically review articles reporting on depression, anxiety, and burnout among U.S. and Canadian medical students. Medline and PubMed were searched to identify peer-reviewed English-language studies published between January 1980 and May 2005 reporting on depression, anxiety, and burnout among U.S. and Canadian medical students. Searches used combinations of the Medical Subject Heading terms medical student and depression, depressive disorder major, depressive disorder, professional burnout, mental health, depersonalization, distress, anxiety, or emotional exhaustion. Reference lists of retrieved articles were inspected to identify relevant additional articles. Demographic information, instruments used, prevalence data on student distress, and statistically significant associations were abstracted. The search identified 40 articles on medical student psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, burnout, and related mental health problems) that met the authors' criteria. No studies of burnout among medical students were identified. The studies suggest a high prevalence of depression and anxiety among medical students, with levels of overall psychological distress consistently higher than in the general population and age-matched peers by the later years of training. Overall, the studies suggest psychological distress may be higher among female students. Limited data were available regarding the causes of student distress and its impact on academic performance, dropout rates, and professional development. Medical school is a time of significant psychological distress for physicians-in-training. Currently available information is insufficient to draw firm conclusions on the causes and consequences of student distress. Large, prospective, multicenter studies are needed to identify personal and training-related features that influence depression, anxiety, and burnout among students and explore relationships between distress and competency.

0 comments Cited 363 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Ying Mao: mao_ying@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

Ning Zhang: ningzhang.xjtu@foxmail.com

Jinlin Liu: liujinlin_xjtu@163.com

Bin Zhu: binzhu2-c@my.cityu.edu.hk

Rongxin He: herongxin1993@foxmail.com

Xue Wang: wangxuex4529@163.com

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Med Educ

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Med Educ

Title: BMC Medical Education

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6920

Publication date (Electronic): 2 September 2019

Publication date PMC-release: 2 September 2019

Publication date Collection: 2019

Volume: 19

Electronic Location Identifier: 327

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0599 1243, GRID grid.43169.39, School of Public Policy and Administration, , Xi’an Jiaotong University, ; Xi’an, 710049 China

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1792 6846, GRID grid.35030.35, Department of Public Policy, , City University of Hong Kong, ; Hong Kong, 999077 China

Article

Publisher ID: 1744

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-019-1744-2

PMC ID: 6721355

PubMed ID: 31477124

SO-VID: e1ee09ee-0c01-4e21-ab60-f828e376cc66

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 14 May 2018

Date accepted : 5 August 2019

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100001547, China Medical Board;

Award ID: 10–029

Award Recipient : Ying Mao

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100012325, National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences;

Award ID: 17ZDA079

Award Recipient : Ying Mao

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Education

Keywords: depression,anxiety,medical students,systematic review,meta-analysis

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Education

Keywords: depression, anxiety, medical students, systematic review, meta-analysis

A systematic review of depression and anxiety in medical students in China

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Electronic supplementary material

Related collections

COOL Knowledge Series

Most cited references 66

Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): a reevaluation of the Life Orientation Test.

Assessing social support: The Social Support Questionnaire.

Systematic review of depression, anxiety, and other indicators of psychological distress among U.S. and Canadian medical students.

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Custom metadata

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 302

Cited by 76

Most referenced authors 1,791