The cherry on top: nice but necessary? The impact of social support on perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and academic performance among medical students at Damascus university.

Background: Students often face many struggles with their university career especially the large amount of stress which is considered an important factor affecting them. Many students consider social support to be a great factor to overcome this stress. This study aims to measure the level of stress and depressive symptoms among medical students at Damascus University and the social support they received to examine the relationship between these variables on the academic performance of the students.

Purpose: To investigate the association between social support received by medical college students and their academic performance and mental wellbeing at Damascus University.

Method of study: A cross-sectional study was conducted using an online self-administered questionnaire. An appropriate sample representing all students of medical colleges at Damascus University was randomly selected to complete the questionnaire.

Results: A total of (1217) medical students participated in the study. Among them, (65.7%) were females and (34.3%) were males. Social support had no correlation with grades of the last semester when spearman's test was conducted nor with perceived stress. Female students received more high and moderate social support (High social support revenue using MSPSS scale: Females: 59%, Males: 49%; P-value = 0.002) and had higher rates of depressive and anxiety symptoms as shown by using PHQ4 scale (moderate depressive and anxiety symptoms: Females = 46%, Males = 35%; P-values < 0.001). Anxiety was correlated with the faculty of students and with the score of the last semester. The majority of participants experienced moderate levels of stress (n = 630, 51.8%). Academic-related stressors were the most prevalent cause of stress among students, especially female students.

Conclusion: Our results indicated no significant relationship between social support or perceived stress and the academic performance of the students. One possible explanation for this finding could be that students are more self-dependent and self-reliant. Female medical students suffered higher levels of stress, particularly academic-related stress, compared to their male peers. Students who received high levels of social support expressed less depressive and anxiety symptoms compared to those who received less social support.