TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 23 February 2023 DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1123356 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Mohammadreza Shalbafan, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran REVIEWED BY Tina Peraica, University Hospital Dubrava, Croatia Ah Yusuf, Airlangga University, Indonesia Gianluca Serafini, San Martino Hospital (IRCCS), Italy *CORRESPONDENCE Ismail Rammouz i.rammouz@uiz.ac.ma SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Public Mental Health, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry RECEIVED 13 December 2022 ACCEPTED 25 January 2023 PUBLISHED 23 February 2023 CITATION Rammouz I, Lahlou L, Salehddine Z, Eloumary O, Laaraj H, Ouhamou M, Mouhadi K, Doufik J, Aalouane R and Boujraf S (2023) Religiosity, stress, and depressive symptoms among nursing and medical students during the middle stage of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in Morocco. Front. Psychiatry 14:1123356. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1123356 COPYRIGHT © 2023 Rammouz, Lahlou, Salehddine, Eloumary, Laaraj, Ouhamou, Mouhadi, Doufik, Aalouane and Boujraf. 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) and the copyright owner(s) 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. Religiosity, stress, and depressive symptoms among nursing and medical students during the middle stage of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in Morocco Ismail Rammouz 1,2,3 *, Laila Lahlou 2 , Zineb Salehddine 3 , Omar Eloumary 3 , Hicham Laaraj 3 , Mina Ouhamou 3 , Khalid Mouhadi 2 , Jalal Doufik 2,3 , Rachid Aalouane 1 and Said Boujraf 1 1 Clinical Neurosciences Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco, 2 Clinical Neuroscience, Innovation and Ethic (NICE) Laboratory REGNE, Medical School of Agadir, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco, 3 Departement of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco Background: Recent studies on nursing and medical students showed a higher prevalence of depression and stress than the general population. Religiosity and spirituality are common in Muslim countries and are usually used as a means of coping strategy for psychological and mental disorders. Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the association between religious actions, depressive symptoms, and stress among students of nursing education lasting 3 years and students from the first 3 years of medical education lasting 7 years. The study was conducted at Ibn Zohr University of Agadir, Morocco. Method: A sample of different stages of nursing and medical students was recruited. Religiosity was assessed by Muslim Belief into Action (M.BIAC) scale. The depressive symptoms and stress were, respectively, assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Results: Four hundred and thirteen students participated in this study. Our results showed a high prevalence of depressive symptoms (62.2%) and stress (66.8%). The depression scores were higher in the following subsample categories: students in the first 2 years of studies, female medical students, and nursing students with significant differences. The recorded religiosity was greater among students without depression compared to students with depression (p < 0.001). In the multivariate regression, the BIAC score demonstrated religiosity as neither a risk factor nor a protective factor of depression. Conclusion: Religiosity constitutes a protective factor of depression and stress among nursing and medical students. This should improve the student’s ability to cope with stressful situations during their training. Prospective studies are needed to further investigate this association and how religiosity improves mental health. This would contribute to improved academic performance and wellbeing among medical and nursing students. KEYWORDS religiosity, spirituality, stress, depression, students Frontiers in Psychiatry 01 frontiersin.org