Volume 26, Issue 129, November 2022

Quality of life for caregivers of patients with mental illness in Qassim region: Cross-sectional study

Mansour Mathna Alharbi^1♦, Fahad Hussain Almazyad², Abdulmonem Ali Alsalhi², Yasser Meshaal Alharbi¹, Abdullah Sulaiman Alkhumayri², Fahad Abdullah Alolayan², Mohammed Abdullah Albesher², Ali Khalid Alshaya², Faisal Fahad Almishali²

¹Department of Psychiatry, College of medicine, Qassim University, Saudi Arabia
²Medical Intern, College of Medicine, Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

^♦Corresponding author
Department of Psychiatry, College of medicine, Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Background: Mental illness is a term use to prescribe a variety of diseases that characterized by abnormal thoughts or behavior or mood of the affected individual. This survey based study aimed to determine the influence of mental illness and poor psychiatric monitoring programs on mind of medical students attending Umm Al-Qura University. Methods: This is a survey based study conducted in June 2022 that utilized an online questionnaire designed in Google Form. The study included all medical students in their second to sixth year at Umm-Al-Qura University. Results: There were 410 total students who participated in this study. About three quarters of the students were males (73.7%) and most of them were Saudis (97.3%). More than half of students were aged <22 years (59.6%). In general, 11.7% of students had been diagnosed with a mental health condition and 8.3% of students had received medications for mental health conditions. Additionally, 11.2% of students were following-up with a mental health specialist (psychiatrist or psychologist) and 8.3% of students were receiving medications for mental health conditions at the time. Conclusion: Our data shows that having a mental illness can have a negative effect on students’ academic performance. Importantly, competent psychiatric monitoring programs can minimize the influence of mental illness.

Keywords: Influence, mental illness, psychiatric monitoring programs, students' performance

Medical Science, 2022, 26, ms502e2595

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.54905/disssi/v26i129/ms502e2595

Published: 29 November 2022