Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Anxiety and depression among pharmacy students before and during COVID-19 pandemic

Walid Al-Qerem¹ , Alaa Hammad¹, Haneen A Amawi², Anan S Jarab³, Jonathan Ling⁴

¹Department of Pharmacy, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Amman; ²Department of Pharmacy Practice, Yarmouk University, Irbid; ³Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan; ⁴School of Health Sciences & Wellbeing, University of Sunderland, Edinburgh Building, Chester Rd, Sunderland SR1 3SD, United Kingdom.

For correspondence:- Walid Al-Qerem Email: waleed.qirim@zuj.edu.jo Tel:+962775001232

Accepted: 22 April 2021 Published: 31 May 2021

Citation: Al-Qerem W, Hammad A, Amawi HA, Jarab AS, Ling J. Anxiety and depression among pharmacy students before and during COVID-19 pandemic. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(5):1039-1047 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i5.22

© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate factors associated with anxiety and depression among pharmacy students before and during COVID-19 ‎pandemic. ‎

Methods: The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaires were translated into Arabic and placed on the e-learning platforms of two Jordanian universities after conducting cognitive interviews. Validity and reliability of the two translated questionnaires were evaluated by conducting Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and calculating Cronbach’s alpha. T-tests and binary regression were conducted to evaluate factors associated with anxiety and depression among pharmacy students.

Results: Several factors were associated with depression and anxiety including being an international student (p < 0.05), living alone and away from their primary country of residence (p < 0.05), female gender (p < 0.01), and being a fifth-year student (p < 0.01).

Conclusion: A tool to evaluate anxiety and depression among pharmacy students in Jordan has been successfully validated. Also, the results show that pharmacy students suffered from high levels of anxiety and depression, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Anxiety, Depression, Pharmacy students, COVID-19