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Gender Differences and Prevalence of Mental Health Problems in Students of Healthcare Units

Community Mental Health Journal volume 55, pages 849–853 (2019)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 20 September 2018

This article has been updated

Abstract

The aim of the present was to assess and compare the mental health of male and female healthcare students in a Health University of Karachi, Pakistan. A cross-sectional study was conducted for which questionnaire was designed along the standard scoring scales of depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7) and phobia (IAPT) completed by 300 enrolled students. Females (52%) of the medical institute suffered from mild to moderately-severe depression in contrast to the males (33%). Females were found to be affected by mild anxiety and phobia (42.7 and 26% respectively) exceeding the male population (27.3 and 15.3% respectively). However, severe depression or anxiety was not observed in either gender groups significantly, suggesting a healthy mental picture of these medical students. It can be concluded that health care students in modern upgraded education systems, in contrast to evidence from literature, have been able to adopt better coping mechanisms for maintaining their mental health.

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Change history

  • 20 September 2018

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained a typo in the author name. The co-author name should be Ahsan Ehtesham instead it was published as Ahsan Ehtisham.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, Dow International Medical College (Ojha Campus), Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan

    Mehnaz Nuruddin Gitay, Sarah Fatima, Shahama Arshad, Basmah Arshad, Ahsan Ehtesham, Muhammad Ameen Baig, Muhammad Furqan Ilyas, Shaad Farhat Rizvi, Qadeer Farooqui & Zeba Haque

  2. Department of Medicine, Dow International Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan

    Muhammad Masroor

Authors
  1. Mehnaz Nuruddin Gitay
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  2. Sarah Fatima
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  3. Shahama Arshad
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  4. Basmah Arshad
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  5. Ahsan Ehtesham
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  6. Muhammad Ameen Baig
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  7. Muhammad Furqan Ilyas
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  8. Shaad Farhat Rizvi
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  9. Qadeer Farooqui
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  10. Muhammad Masroor
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  11. Zeba Haque
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mehnaz Nuruddin Gitay.

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No conflict of interest exists among the authors.

Additional information

The original version of this article was revised: Typo in co-author name has been corrected.

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Gitay, M.N., Fatima, S., Arshad, S. et al. Gender Differences and Prevalence of Mental Health Problems in Students of Healthcare Units. Community Ment Health J 55, 849–853 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-018-0304-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-018-0304-2

Keywords

  • Health care
  • Education
  • Psychological
  • Psychiatric
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
  • Gender