The prevalence of anxiety, stress and depressive symptoms in undergraduate students at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College

Abstract

Objective (1) Determine the one-week prevalence of moderate to extreme symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression in chiropractic undergraduate students. (2) Determine whether the prevalence varies across gender and year of study. Participants: Undergraduate students at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in fall 2017 to measure self-reported symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression using the DASS-21. Results: The participation rate was 67.0% (510/766). The one-week prevalence of moderate to extreme symptoms was 19.0% (95% CI: 13.0–25.0) for depression; 32.6% (95% CI: 24.7–40.3) for anxiety and 21.8% (95% CI: 15.6–28.1) for stress. The prevalence of stress varied significantly across gender: 25.4% (95% CI: 20.5–30.3) for females versus 16.3% (95% CI: 11.2–21.3) for males. The one-week prevalence of depressive (24.8%; 95% CI: 17.6–32.0) and anxiety (40.9%; 95% CI: 32.6–49.1) symptoms peaked in second year. Conclusions: Self-reported symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression are common in CMCC students.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• chiropractic
• depression
• stress
• students

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Chris McGrath, Kathy Smith and Dr. Silvano Mior for their help and support during the study. We would also like to thank CMCC and the undergraduate students for participating in the study.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements of Canada and received approval from the Research Ethics Boards of the Canadiam Memorial Chiropractic College (#1709B03) and University of Ontario Institute of Technology (#14515).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the CMCC’s Research Division and the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS).