Introduction

Depression among medical students is particularly prevalent, however studies on risk factors and treatment for this group have proved to be methodologically insufficient as the results were not consistent.

Aims

To determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms, their risk factors, and the use of antidepressants among medical students.

Methods

Participants answered the Beck’s Inventory (BDI) for detecting depressive symptoms and the Morisky-Green-Levine test to evaluate medication adherence. A one-tailed Fisher’s exact test was performed on qualitative variables, with a one-way Anova test performed on quantitative variables with post-hoc analysis by means of Tukey-Kramer’s test. Differences were considered to be statistically significant when p < 0.05.

Results

Associations between depressive disorders and the following factors were considered statistically significant: frequency of leisure activities, stress, satisfaction with academic performance, and lack of emotional support. Gender, living alone, steady partner, use of alcohol, smoking tobacco, use of illicit drugs, and Medical school’s grade did not show association with depressive disorders. Satisfaction with academic performance and high level of stress were not statistically significant when they were correlated to Medical school’s grade.

Conclusion

The prevalence of depression and also use of antidepressants is similar to the results recorded by other studies on medical students performed by Brazilian and international institutions. The following items were considered to be risk factors on the development of depressive disorders: frequency of leisure activities, stress, satisfaction with academic performance, and lack of emotional support in the academic environment. From the fourth grade to the sixth grade, the prevalence of depression seemed to increase and just the sixth grade was statistically significant when compared to other grades through averages of BDI score. It suggests the hypothesis that the end of Medical course is the period of time where there are more stressful and depressive factors for the student.

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