Introduction:

During the pandemic of COVID-19 health authorities took confinement measures and implemented distance educational activities. These changes, along with the social isolation, have caused mental disorders, as depression, in medicine students.

Objective:

To determine the prevalence of depression during COVID-19 in medicine students from a private university of Mexico.

Methods:

A descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional and non experimental study of 278 students from fourth, sixth and eighth semesters from the University Xochicalco, campus Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, was carried out on February, 2021. The Zung scale was used as instrument to measure the depression and for the statistical analysis measures of central tendency and dispersion were used; while for the difference of nominal variables the chi-squared test was used.

Results:

The average age was 20.84 ± 1.74 years, with prevalence of the female sex (61.7 %) and a prevalence of depression at 17.0 % (mild depression), mainly in the students from fourth semester. On the other hand, 31.6 % of the students presented COVID-19; as long as, 85.2 % had some relative with the disease and 25.5 of them, had dead relatives.

Conclusions:

There is mild depression in the students from the university center abovementioned, reason why the Psychology Department staff has had to adapt to this new normality to be able to offer them the whole support required in these times of pandemic and confinement, so a better knowledge on the mental disorders to impact in its prevention and in the appropriate treatment is imposed.

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