Assessment of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms during COVID-19 pandemic among medical students

Abstract

Introduction and Aim: Post traumatic stress disorder is known to be a usual response to distressing experiences. Common symptoms include recurrent events of anxiousness, emotional insensibility and escape mechanism. The COVID-19 pandemic is one such recent occasion that is likely to have an enormous psychological impact on medical student based on extreme social restrictions worldwide. This study therefore aims to investigate the post pandemic PTSD symptoms among first year medical students . Materials and Methods: Department of Physiology, Lord Buddha Koshi Medical College, Saharsa, conducted this observational study for a period of four months starting from September 2020 to December 2020. One hundred and forty-six students completed the most advanced Impact Event Scale -Revised (IES-R) questionnaire. Student’s t-test was performed to analyze the strength of association between PTSD symptoms among the participants.   Results: The study concurs high level of PTSD between age-matched medical students after the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic. The IES-R method of PTSD scoring system was used to arrive at this conclusion. However, this area of research requires multi-centric results to verify the outcome measures.   Conclusion: Post pandemic PTSD symptoms were high among the first year medical students.