IJRRMS VOL-3 No.2 APR - JUN 2013 | | | | IJRRMS 2013;3(2) Modi K, Kumar D Medical undergraduates are under considerable stress especially before their final exams. To investigate student's anxiety, depression and perceived mental pressure levels and whether the use of wishful thinking or problem-solving coping was related to anxiety and depression levels. We studied 92 final year MBBS students of a rural medical college about 2 months before final exams using a pre-tested questionnaire. The prevalence of depression, anxiety and perceived mental pressure was 9 %, 54% and 46% respectively. The need for counseling was felt by 54.3% of students. None of the socio-demographic factors studied showed a significant association with the prevalence of anxiety or depression or perceived mental pressure or use of particular coping mechanism. Wishful thinking was associated with increased prevalence of anxiety (p<0.001). These findings justify the counseling sessions to be started for all the students rather than focusing on certain groups. medical students, anxiety, coping methods, problem solving, wishful thinking Anxiety and depression in medical students and its association with coping method adopted by them ABSTRACT Background: Aim: Methods: Results: Conclusions: Key words: INTRODUCTION Mental health problems are a major public health concern due to their high prevalence rates, difficulties related with the treatment, and their tendencies to become chronic. Depression and anxiety are commonest mental illnesses especially 1 in adolescents. Bartlett pointed out there are immense empirical support for the belief that anxiety and depression impacts adversely on 2 physiological and mental health. A medical graduate (MBBS) has to read many hours a day routinely to understand vast field of health care. Family and society has very high expectations from them. So we hypothesize that there may be some degree of anxiety and depression in every MBBS student. They are also likely to have various coping methods to deal with the perceived stress. These methods may be broadly grouped as wishful thinking and problem solving. Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality. Problem solving is a mental process and is part of the larger problem process that includes problem finding and problem shaping. Considered the most complex of all intellectual functions, problem solving is a higher order cognitive process that requires the modulation and control of more routine or fundamental skills. Studies related to various aspects of stress have been reported from abroad, but such data from 3-6 India is scarce. Therefore, this study was undertaken to assess the level of perceived mental pressure among final year medical graduates; to assess the prevalence of anxiety and depression and affecting factors; and to assess the relationship between anxiety and depression and the coping methods used. This cross sectional study was carried out among the final year medical undergraduates about a month before their final exams. All the students were invited to participate in the study. Data was collected using a self administered questionnaire, which had 3 sections consisting questions for socio-demographic information, coping up mechanisms, perceived stress and anxiety. There was also a section to for rating anxiety and depression. The coping mechanisms were assessed using 14 questions amended from the MATERIALS AND METHODS Original Research Paper 20