Association Between Emotional Distress Tolerance and Depression Among Postgraduate Medical Trainees in the University of Nairobi

Abstract

Introduction Mental health is a concern to society. Medical students go through a lot of stressors due to the complexity of their work, family issues, as well as college work. Therefore, they become vulnerable to mental illnesses, which can negatively affect their grades and lives in general. This study aims at researching Distress Tolerance (DT) as a possible resilience factor in the development of depression among students. Objective The objective of the study is to determine if distress intolerance is associated with depression among medical registrars in the UON. Method The current study usedan analytical cross-sectional design using quantitative methods of data collection. The area of study was the UON School of medicine, which is located at Kenyatta National Hospital and Mathari teaching and referral hospital. The study targeted280 postgraduate medical students from 2013 to date since most of the courses last for six years, but there are still some students who take up to 10 years before they complete their course because of different challenges. The primary outcome measures used the Becks depression Inventory and the distress tolerance scale.Data collection was through Google forms administered questionnaires. Data entry and analysis was by STATA vERSION16. All measures were self-reported. Results Out of the 280 targeted sample size, 258 responded which represents 90% of the response required where 51.6% were male and 48.4% female.Most of the respondents were in the younger age of 20 -30 years (45.9%) and only 11.9% were above 40 years of age.Among the respondents, 32.3% were in their year one of study, 20.3% in year two, 24.5% in year three and 22.9% in year four or above.Majority of the respondents were employed (80.2%) and most of the students were self-sponsored (54.7%). More than half (54.5%) of the respondents were married, and majority (64.4%) were not involved in social activities. Among the participants, 137(53.5%) reported normal BDI score, while 23(9.0%) reported mild depression,77(29.3%) moderate depression, and 21(8.2%) had severe depression. Conclusion Based on the objectives of the study, it was found out that medical registrars were vulnerable to depression based on social demographic characteristics like age, gender, and marital status. Female students were found to be more susceptible to depression than male students. It was also found out that the risk of experiencing depression is also dependent on the age of the students. The older students were found to be more susceptible to depression compared to the younger students. Marriage life showed good prognosis because they showed to be less depressed than the divorced and singles. The findings also indicate that distress tolerance was found to be related to depression among the medical registrar.