Depression, anxiety, stress & coping strategy among undergraduate physiotherapy students before professional examination

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the level of depression, anxiety, stress and coping strategy among undergraduate physiotherapy students before professional examination. Objective: To identify the level of depression, anxiety, stress and to find out the correlation between depression, anxiety and stress with COPE. Methodology: The study design was cross sectional. A total of 105 sample were selected conveniently for this study from physiotherapy department of BHPI,CRP. Data was collected by a written questionnaire which has three part, socio-demographic information, DASS-21and Brief COPE. Descriptive statistics using SPSS software version 25 were used for data analysis. Result: In that Study, the mean age of the participant was 23.40±0.715 years. Females were about 51.4% and male were about 49%. Among total students 80% lived in hostel & 20% lived in home. Among the participants, second year undergraduate students participation were in highest rate , 61.9 % & third year undergraduate students were 38.1%. Among 105 participants, 5.7% had mild depression, 53.3% had moderate depression, 30.5% had severe depression & 7.6% had extremely severe depression. Out of total participants, 14.3% had mild anxiety, 31.4% had moderate anxiety, 11.4% had severe anxiety and 41.9% had extremely severe anxiety. Among total students, 23.8% had mild stress, 36.2% had moderate stress, 10.5% had severe anxiety, 4.8% had extremely severe stress. In that study, average depression score was 9.87± 2.916 and, average anxiety score was 8.90± 3.438, average stress score was 9.77± 3.438 and average COPE score was 46.00±5.226. In that study, there exist a weak positive (r value = 0.206*) correlation between depression and COPE where p-value was 0.035 considered statistically significant when (p value <0.05). Also there was a weak positive correlation ( r value = .364**) between anxiety and COPE with p value .000 which was (p value <0.05) also significant. Even, a weak positive correlation (r value= .295**) exist with stress and COPE with p value .002 (p value <0.05) was considered statistically significant. In that case, higher level of depression, anxiety and stress in students were associated with higher use of certain coping strategy. Conclusion: The study provides a snapshot for level of depression, anxiety, stress with some socio demographic information of the participants. Here study also find out the correlation between depression, anxiety and stress with COPE.