An online survey conducted by the National Task Force on Mental Health and Well-being of Medical Students in 2024, not-so-surprisingly reveals that 28% of undergraduate (UG) and 15.3% of postgraduate (PG) students are diagnosed with mental health problems.
Here’s all you need to know about the dire situation.
What Are The Findings?
The survey that was conducted all over the country, comprised 25,590 UG students, 5,337 PG ones and 7,035 faculty members.
It claims that about 8,962 or 35% of them felt lonely and socially isolated most of the time or always and 9,995 or 39.1% of them felt so sometimes. This is no surprise. The report, which was finalized in June this year, also claims that about 8,265 (32.3%) find maintaining social connections or remaining in touch difficult and 6,089 (23.8%) find it ‘somewhat’ difficult.
Moreover, 36.4% felt that they did not possess enough knowledge or techniques to manage stress. 18.2% of the ones surveyed find their faculty members to be extremely unsupportive and unhelpful.
The survey also said that a vast majority of students, that is, 56.6% of them found their academic work to be heavy yet manageable while 20.7% of them felt it to be too heavy and only 1.5% of them felt that it was light.
A vast majority of students found their stipends to be insufficient, “pointing to a critical need for review and adjustment of stipend policies.”
“Discrimination can profoundly impact students’ mental health, academic performance, and well-being. However, 68.80% of PG students reported not facing discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, religion, caste, geography, language, or other factors in their academic environment.
But at the same time, a substantial percentage, 31%, of students reported that they are experiencing discrimination, underscoring the need for institutions to implement more robust policies against discrimination and to foster an inclusive environment,” the report added.
According to the survey, “The fear of failure is a significant issue in UG students with 51.6 per cent agreeing or strongly agreeing that it negatively impacts their performance. Furthermore, 10,383 (40.6 per cent) students feel constant pressure to achieve top grades.”
It advised resident doctors to work for a maximum of 74 hours in a week, take at least one day off work and sleep for 7 hours every day to balance their academic work with their personal lives.
Read More: “Pushes Me To Depression,” Medical Student’s Anonymous Open Letter Highlights Their Miserable Condition
What Is Being Done About The Ongoing Mental Health Crisis Of Medical Students?
Although the ones entering this rigorous course are aware of the pressure and hard work it will require, they do need solutions that cater to their mental health issues. The NMC task force reveals that 18.6% of the surveyed students did not have access to mental health services.
Adding on, the instances that further deteriorated their mental health, such as ragging and bullying were faced by 9.6% of them. Amid such grave problems, the presence of such mental health services becomes all the more necessary as 14.1% of students felt that their institutions were not taking adequate measures to see into the problem of ragging.
As for the PG students, almost half of them revealed working for more than 60 hours a week and not getting their scheduled off days. A large amount of these students also reported ragging and harassment from senior PG students in clinics and senior resident doctors.
Despite the high scale of awareness regarding these issues, a significant number of students are still oblivious to the rules and regulations or what course they can take if they face such issues.
The findings of the report said, “However, these measures alone are not enough, as indicated by the (18 per cent) substantial proportion of students affected by ragging. This suggests a potential gap in the enforcement of these measures or in the effectiveness of the response systems. Educational institutions must maintain anti-ragging policies, actively enforce them, and ensure that students are both aware of and comfortable accessing support systems.“
The task force suggested developing effective infrastructure for stress management and dealing with mental health issues. Working for long hours daily with no space for recess, continuous duty for as long as five days and lack of proper infrastructure is only exacerbating the problem.
A whopping 19% of PG students admitted that they succumb to using substances such as tobacco, alcohol, smoking, and cannabis, to release their stress; while 10% of them said that suicidal thoughts had crossed their minds several times in the past year.
“While implementing biometric attendance systems has significantly improved the situation, stricter action and more rigorous implementation are necessary to address these concerns effectively. These practices not only compromise the quality of education but also undermine the integrity of the medical profession,” underlined the report.
It is high time we give equal importance to mental health issues. This is a subject that holds so much relevance, yet is not given its share of significance. It is saddening to know that the people who help cure others, themselves suffer from mental health issues.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: NMC, The Hindu, National Herald
Find the blogger: Unusha Ahmad
This post is tagged under: medical, doctor, resident doctors, PG, UG, college, ragging, bullying, suicide, mental health, stress, issues, infrastructure, institutions, policies, Mental Health and Well-being of Medical Students, NMC, 2024, June, survey, findings, discrimination
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