ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Anxiety and Stress Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1544252
Prevalence and Associated Factors of Mental Distress Among Private College Nursing Students in Gondar Town, North-West, Ethiopia, 2023
Provisionally accepted
Agegnehu Amare Setegn1*
Niguse Ygzaw2Bizuneh Tesfaye2Enguday Trfeneh2Seblewengel Tinsae2
Kiber Temesgen1
Gebremeskel Mesafint1- 1Mizan Tepi University, Mīzan Teferī, Ethiopia
- 2College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
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Background: Mental distress(MD) is a range of symptoms and experiences of a person's internal life that are held to be troubling, confusing, or out of ordinary that affects over 25% of all people during their lives. Students with mental distress are more likely to experience negative consequences such as impaired cognitive functioning, learning disabilities, poor academic performance and substance abuse. This study aimed to fill a research gap to indicate the magnitude and its related factors.Methods An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Gondar town using a multi-stage stratified sampling technique to select the study participants. The Kessler-10 item scale was applied to measure the prevalence of mental distress. Bi-variable and Multivariable logistic regression analysis models were fitted and variables having a p-value < 0.05 with 95% CI in the multi-variable model were considered as statistically significant.The prevalence of mental distress among private college nursing students in the current study was 52.74% (95% CI (48.79, 56.66). On multivariable analysis; being female (AOR=2.8, 95%CI 1.50, 3.16), rural residency (AOR = 1.96, 95% CI 1.3, 2.95), having poor social support (AOR = 2.03,95% CI 1.20, 3.42), not participating in regular physical exercise (AOR = 3.28, 95% CI 1.68, 6.37), never attending guidance and counseling service (AOR=2.37, 95%CI 1.12, ii 4.99) and having family history of mental illness (AOR = 2.65, 95% CI 1.31, 5.35) were factors significantly associated with mental distress.The overall prevalence of mental distress in this study was notably high with associated factors including sex, residency, social support, participation in regular physical exercise, attending guidance and counseling services and family history of mental illness. Therefore, we recommend that the Ministry of Health and Education to intervene on enhancing guidance and counseling services and promoting regular physical exercise at collage level.
Keywords: mental distress, Private college, nursing students, Gondar, Ethiopia
Received: 12 Dec 2024; Accepted: 01 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Setegn, Ygzaw, Tesfaye, Trfeneh, Tinsae, Temesgen and Mesafint. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Agegnehu Amare Setegn, Mizan Tepi University, Mīzan Teferī, Ethiopia
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