A Comparative Study of General Health among Medical and Nonmedical Undergraduate Students

India offers several courses in the field of health-science. The increasing population of the country demands more trained individuals in this field. These courses include MBBS, BDS, BAMS, BPT, BSc Nursing etc. The current study aims to asess the general health of undergraduate students from various courses, across the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India. The assessment used the Standardized General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), which consists of 12 items with 4 response options each. It measures general well-being and mental health, evaluating factors such as the individual’s ability to concentrate and sleep quality. The questionnaire is designed to assess overall mental health status. The GHQ-12 was used to interview 156 UG Students across the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, 78 of whom were medical students and 78 were nonmedical students. Post-graduate students were excluded for the study. Upon data collection and analysis, it was observed that 71.79% medical students in their UG tend to have poor general health as compared to 70.89% nonmedical students. Thus, higher number of medical students tended to have poorer general health as compared to nonmedical students. This might have been due to their hectic schedule and extensive syllabus, demading both physical and mental hard work and exhaustion. 73.27% males showed scores above 3 in contrast to 67.86% of female subjects, indicating lower general well-being in females. The study was concentrated in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, leaving scope for similar research on a different population and a different sample size.