Religiosity was Associated with Lower Scores on Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in Medical Students During the Covid 19 Pandemic
Author(s): Karleth Costa Spindola-Rodrigues, Rodrigo Antonio Rosal Mota, Maria Eduarda De Souza Arêa Leão, Ana Luzia Coelho Lapa Ayrimoraes Soares, Kelson James Almeida
Aims: To associate symptoms of anxiety and depression with religiosity among medical students during the pandemic by COVID-19.
Methods: Students were randomly selected to complete a questionnaire with sociodemographic data, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Duke University Religion Index (DUREL). The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyze the groups in independent samples and the Spearman test was used to correlate the variables.
Results: 255 subjects were selected, 67.1% (171) female and 32.9% (84) male. Regarding the HADS scale, 57.3% (146) exceeded the cut-off points for anxiety and 32% (82) and for depression. A higher prevalence of depression was found, with high statistical significance, in students of the clinical cycle. Was demonstrated the absence of a difference in anxiety indices between course cycles. When correlating anxiety, depression, and religiosity, there was a significant and inversely proportional relationship between anxiety and intrinsic religiosity. We also observed, with statistical significance, an inversely proportional correlation between organizational religiosity and depression among participants.
Conclusions: There was an inversely proportional association between anxiety symptoms and intrinsic religiosity. We also observed an inversely proportional association between depression symptoms and organizational religiosity among medical students during the period of home isolation during the pandemic by COVID-19. The stressful event triggered by the pandemic favored the analysis of the association with religiosity, whose protocol for defining risk or protection in longitudinal studies becomes challenging due to the unlikely repetition of the severity of the time when the present study was conducted.