Abstract

Background: The high demands and pressures from the physical environment impact the psychological wellbeing of an individual. Very few studies have been published so far from Saudi Arabia. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of socio-emotional factors on the subjective wellbeing of medical students in Saudi Arabia.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included 440 medical students (male and female) from Phase II (pre-clinical years) & Phase III (clinical years) in the College of Medicine, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh. Two self-administered validated questionnaires, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support to assess the social support, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 to measure the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress, were used. The Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and regression analysis were used to analyze data. A p-value < 0.05 was considered to be significant.
Result: Overall, depression, anxiety, and stress were found at 44%, 61%, and 35% among the students, respectively. There was a positive association between social support and emotional wellbeing (r = 0.868, r = -0.208). Overall, females were higher on emotional wellbeing than males (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the study found that graduate entrants students experience less negative emotions compared to school entrants (p < 0.002), and married students show fewer negative emotions compared to single students (p = 0.021). On perceived
social support subscales, no significant difference between gender (p = 0.937), stream (p = 0.50), and marital status (p = 0.073) was observed.
Conclusion: In conclusion, the study found an association between perceived social supports the emotional state. Moreover, females experience more emotional problems and receive less social support than males. Avenues for future research and academic advisors’ role were discussed.

Key words: Perceived social support, socio-emotion, stress, depression, wellbeing