On-Boarding Graduate Student Correlates

Purpose: Mental health disorders and unhealthy behaviors are prevalent and persistent among college students and few receive or seek evidence-based treatment. However, little is known about these problems, specifically in graduate health sciences students. Understanding relationships among healthy lifestyle behaviors and mental health symptoms is important in developing interventions to target improvement in both. Therefore, the purpose of this study is describe the relationships among stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, healthy lifestyle beliefs and behaviors in first year graduate health sciences students participating in an innovative wellness onboarding program at a large public land grant university in the mid-west region of the United States.

Methods: A descriptive correlational study was conducted on the baseline data collected from 91 first year health sciences students enrolled in the first semester of programs of dentistry, medicine, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, and health and rehabilitation sciences.  Main variables collected included depression and anxiety symptoms measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, stress measured by the Brief Inventory Perceived Stress, and Healthy Lifestyle Beliefs and Behaviors measured by the Healthy Lifestyle Beliefs Scale and Healthy Lifestyle Behavior Scale.

Results: A significant positive correlation occurred between healthy lifestyle beliefs and healthy lifestyle behaviors. Negative correlations existed between depression, anxiety, stress, and healthy lifestyle beliefs and behaviors.

Conclusion: Findings support an evidence-based intervention is needed to prevent depressive/anxiety symptoms in first year graduate health sciences students and enhance healthy lifestyle beliefs and behaviors. The ability to decrease their depressive and anxiety symptoms and practice healthy lifestyle behaviors is important in assisting them to implement change individually and within the populations they will influence.