Medical student depression and its correlates across three international medical schools

Table 1 Chi-square and analysis of variance comparisons of group characteristics

Variable	Yale University School of Medicine, n = 205	Middle Eastern Medical School, n = 126	Xiangya School of Medicine, n = 142	Entire population, n = 473	Statistics
Age, mean (SD1)	25.3 (2.4)	22.1 (1.0)	22.0 (1.5)	23.4 (2.5)	F = 174.7a
Gender	43.4% Male (M) 56.6% Female (F)	37.3% M 62.7% F	43.7% M 56.3% F	41.8% M 58.2% F	χ2 = 0.5
Sleep2 in hr, mean (SD)	6.6 (1.0)	6.6 (1.0)	6.5 (0.9)	6.5 (1.0)	F = 5.6a
Exercise3, mean (SD)	2.5 (1.8)	1.4 (1.7)	1.6 (1.8)	1.9 (1.8)	F = 18.1a
Depression screening by PHQ-24 category	Not depressed: 62.8% Mild depression: 33.3% Depressed: 3.8% (n = 7)	Not depressed:10.5% Mild depression: 48.8% Depressed: 41.1% (n = 51)	Not depressed: 16.2 % Mild depression: 69.7% Depressed: 14.1% (n = 20)	Not depressed: 33.6% Mild depression: 49.0% Depressed: 17.4% (n = 78)	χ2 = 161.1a
Stress5	Yes: 58.4% (n = 108)	Yes: 75.4% (n = 95)	Yes: 82.9% (n = 116)	Yes=70.9% (n = 319)	χ2 = 25.3a
Unmet mental health need6	Disagree: 49.5% Neutral: 17.7% Agree: 32.8%	Disagree: 32.5% Neutral: 16.7% Agree: 50.8%	Disagree: 47.1% Neutral: 18.1% Agree: 34.8%	Disagree: 44.1% Neutral: 17.6% Agree: 38.3%	χ2 = 12.1b

^aP < 0.01;

^bP < 0.05;

¹SD: Standard deviation;

²For the purposes of scale measurement, if a participant answered < 4 h a night, 3.5 was the number coded, 4-5 h a night = 4.5; 6-7 h a night = 6.5, and > 8 h a night was coded as 8.5;

³Mean number of days per week spent exercising at least 30 consecutive minutes;

⁴PHQ-2: Patient Health Questionnaire-2; where not depressed = 0, mild depression is 1-2, depressed is ≥ 3;

⁵Response to question “Are you stressed?”;

⁶Answer of agreement to Likert scale question “there are times I have a mental health need for which I do not seek care”. Agree and Strongly Disagree were collapsed into one category; Agree and Strongly Agree were collapsed into another.