MENTAL HEALTH AND ITS DETERMINANTS OF MEDICAL STUDENTS OF PAMO UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE.

ABSTRACT Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community (WHO. Our general objective for this project was to assess mental health and its determinants in medical students in PAMO University of Medical Sciences. A cross-sectional study design was adopted and the sampling technique was stratified sampling with proportionate allocation. The study population was 200-600 level medical students of PAMO University of Medical Sciences. Sample size was 293. The study instrument was a self-administered, semi-structured, pre-tested online questionnaire. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), software version 27 and reported using tables. The number of respondents was 310.The findings showed that (59.4%) were between 19-22, (65.2%) were female, (97.4%) were Christians, (63.5%) had government sponsorship and (64.8%) had average family monthly income of >₦500,000, (89.4%) of respondents had good knowledge of stress management, (98.4%) respondents exhibited a positive attitude towards stress management and (61.3%) of respondents had good stress management practices. Using GHQ-12, PHQ-9 and GAD-7, the study revealed that (24.5%) were healthy, (48.7%) were at risk, while (26.8%) were mentally unwell, the prevalence of depression and anxiety was (49.35%) and (59%), respectively.The factors that were associated with poor mental health status of the students in this study included age (χ2=14.409; p ≤0.025), female sex (χ2=7.556; p≤ 0.023) and religion (χ2=14.217; p ≤0.007) while knowledge (χ2=14.076; p ≤0.007) and practice (χ2=21.743; p