Abstract:
Abstract
Introduction: Mental distress is feeling of upset, stress, anxiety, depression, and any emotional
and psychological symptoms which you may feel hindering normal healthy functioning, it is
becoming a common health problem among university students globally. In low- and middleincome countries, there is limited data on the barriers to professional mental health care access to
university students with mental distress. For people with mental health issues, just point care,
whereas many do not access service at all.
Objective: To assess the prevalence and associated factors of mental distress and barriers to
receive professional mental health care among regular undergraduate students at Woldia
university, Ethiopia, 2021.
Method: facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among a sample of 812 regular under
graduate students at Woldia university from march 30 to April 30, 2021; study subjects was selected using
stratified multistage sampling technique; Kessler psychological distress scale were used to assess mental
distress; the data were entered by Epi data version 3.1 and data was analysed using STATA version 14 for
windows, Bivariate and Multivariate logistic regression analysis were done to identify associated factors
to mental distress; barriers to mental health care were assessed using barriers to access to care evaluation
(BACE-III) 30 item tool; Percentage, frequency, mean, and standard deviation were employed to identify
common barriers to mental health care service. Multiple linear regression analysis was done with the total
mean scores of barriers to access to care evaluation (BACE-III) sub-scales to identify the associated factors.
Variables with P-values of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant and strength of the
association were presented by an adjusted odds ratio with 95% C.I for mental distress and barriers to receive
professional mental health care.
Results. The proportion of students with mental distress were found to be 44.6%. Female students
(adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 2.51; 95% CI (1.73, 3.65), current substance use (AOR=2.59; 95% CI 1.38,
4.88), poor social support (AOR=2.15; 95% CI 1.37, 3.38) and decreased grade point (CGPA) than
anticipated (AOR=1.89; 95% CI 1.25, 2.86) were significantly associated with mental distress of students.
The top five barriers to receive professional mental health service were: (a) Wanting to solve the problem
on their own, (b) thinking the problem would get better by itself, (c) Having no one who could help them
to get professional care, (d) dislike of talking about their feelings, emotions or thoughts’ and (e) thinking
as they do not have a problem
