Mental health in medical students - A case control study using the 60 itemGeneral Health Questionnaire

This paper describes a cross-sectional case control study to measure the pr evalence of psychological morbidity in first year medical students and comp are it to the prevalence in in a randomly selected control group of other f irst year students at Edinburgh University. The study was conducted anonymo usly using the 60 item General Health Questionnaire. Participation rates we re over 90% in both subjects and controls. A total of 17% of medical studen ts had symptoms of psychological morbidity which may benefit from treatment and a further 29% of medical students had symptoms of psychological distre ss which would be expected to remit spontaneously. A similar rate was found in the control group of students. This suggests that if medical students o r doctors, later in their careers, fare badly in terms of mental health the n this may well be related to aspects of their lives and is not an intrinsi c characteristic.