Stress associated with medical education, correlated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, has been involved in generating academic performance problems and thus, long-term consequences, such as poor quality of medical care. If anxiety and depression are proved to influence quality of academic achievement, their prevention could lead to better outcomes also in the quality of medical care.

The objective of the study was to analyze if anxiety and depression decrease academic performance in first and second year medical students.

As a measure of anxiety and depression symptoms we used Zung Self-rating Anxiety score > 36, respectively Zung Self-rating Depression Scale score > 40, in the periods before the examination session, in the first semester (in no-stress conditions). As a measure of academic performance, we have obtained the average grade at the end of the academic year from 254 of the total population of 356 first and second year medical students. Statistical analyses were carried out with SPSS version 16 (Spearman correlations and logistic regression).

Academic performance decreases inversely in rapport of anxiety (rho = –0.144, P < 0.05) and depression (rho = –0.192, P < 0.05) scores in the period before the examination session. Also, depression in this period predicts low levels of academic performance with average grade in the inferior quarter (grades lower than 7.52) particularly in first year students, irrespective of gender (χ2 = 8.922, P < 0.01, OR = 0.928; IC 95% = 0.864–0.997).

These findings suggest the necessity of coming up with prophylactic methods to prevent anxiety and depression especially in first year medical students, as these prove to be factors that impend academic performance.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.