Health-related quality of life of medical students

Medical Education 2010: 44 : 227–235 Objectives Mental problems such as stress, anxiety and depression have been described among medical students and are associated with poor academic and professional performance. It has been speculated that these problems impair students’ quality of life (QoL). The authors aimed to assess the health‐related QoL (HRQL) of medical students throughout their 6 years of training at a school with a traditional curriculum. Methods Of a total of 490 students attending our institution’s medical school, 38 were surveyed in February 2006 (incoming Year 1 group, surveyed when students were in the second week of Year 1 classes) and 352 were surveyed in February 2007 (students in Years 1–6). Students self‐reported their HRQL and depressive symptoms using the Short‐Form Health Survey (SF‐36) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Comparisons were performed according to year in training, presence of depressive symptoms, gender, living arrangements and correlations with family income. Results The students’ ages ranged from 18 to 31 years (median 22.3 years). Students in Years 2, 3, 4 and 6 had lower scores for mental and physical dimensions of HRQL compared with the incoming Year 1 group (P