Psychiatric morbidity among students appearing in final semester bachelor of engineering examination

Aim: To study the psychiatric morbidity in students appearing for final semester bachelor of engineering examination.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted for the exam going final semester Bachelor of Engineering students at Thapar Institute of Engineering College & Technology, Patiala. Total of 110 students were screened, 5 students dropped out at various stages of study. Finally, N=105 students were enrolled that fulfilled both inclusion and exclusion criteria. They were assessed using PGI-Health Questionnaire-N1 (PGI-HQ N1) for neurotic traits and Symptom Check List-90 (SCL-90) for psychiatric morbidity. Patients gave written informed consent and study was conducted as per the declaration of Helsinki, Geneva. Statistical analysis was performed at significance of p value of < 0.05.
Results: Out of 110 students that were screened, 105 participated in the study (response rate 95.45%). 83 (79.05%) were males and 22 were (20.95%) females. On PGI-HQ N1, 56.2% students showed neurotic traits with mean score of 11.02 ± 5.58. Males had higher rates of psychiatric morbidity (43.80%) than females (7.6%). Psychiatric symptoms on SCL-90 scale ranged from minimum of 11.42% (somatization and phobia) to maximum of 72.38% (anger hostility) with overall mean SCL-90 score of 64.86 38.38. The overall individual psychiatric symptoms on SCL-90 sub-scales were 32.4% depression, 23.85% anxiety, 42.85% OCN (obsessive compulsive neurosis). Males students had higher anxiety score of 28.9% as compared to 4.54% in females which was statistically significant (p<0.05) and also for other psychiatric symptoms i.e., paranoid (24.1% versus 9.09%; p<0.05) and interpersonal sensitivity (42.1% versus 27.27%; p<0.05).
Conclusions: In our study, males had higher psychiatric morbidity than females and academic stress of exam showed detrimental effect on mental health whereas no relationship was found with education, economic and other socio-demographic parameters.