DETERMINANTS OF DEPRESSION AMONG UNDEGRADUATE STUDENTS OF A TERTIARY INSTITUTION IN IBADAN METROPOLIS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: With an estimated global prevalence of 3.4%, the World Health organization (WHO) has found depression to be a common illness which is the leading cause of disability around the world. Depression among undergraduate students is becoming increasingly common in universities with previous prevalence of 7.0% for severe depression and 25.2% for moderate depression. This research carried out among undergraduates of the University of Ibadan aimed at determining the prevalence of depression, assessing knowledge of depression among the students, determining association between knowledge of depression and severity of depression and also determining factors associated with depression. METHODOLGY: The study was carried out in the University of Ibadan, in Oyo state, A cross sectional quantitative approach was used in carrying out this research with a total of four hundred and one respondents with which respondents were selected using multi stage sampling. Students who were resident on campus were chosen to be part of the study while distance learning students and students who didn’t consent to the study were exempted from the study. An anonymous self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from the students as the questionnaire was divided into four sections in which some of the instruments used were standard instruments which were scored used to input data into the statistical software used for analysis. Informed consent was sought from participants as they were assured of withdrawing from the study at any time without consequences. RESULTS: With a sample size of 401 and a response rate of 85%, majority of the students were found to have good knowledge of depression with 82.7% of the student being able to tell what symptoms exists in depressed persons and causes of depression, while `17.3 % of students have poor knowledge on recognizing depressive symptoms and causes .With a prevalence rate of 57.8% for moderate depression and 4.9% severe depression, this study found association between sex with 4.602 odds ratio of female to develop depression (C.I=1.073-7.629) and a risk of those in age group 20-24 to develop depression than those in other Age group (OR=3.311, C.I=1.188-4.620),other finding also confirmed students and young adults who grew living with a single parents have a risk of 3.023 to experience depression than those who lived with both parents while those who had lost one of their parents had a O.R of 3.319 (C.I=1.45-3.802) to develop depression than students whose parents are married or divorced, studies showed that due to inability to share experiences or mental burden with parents, coping habits like alcohol use was found to also mediate traumatic experiences like accidents which has an O.R of 7.507 (C.I=2.483-15.63) to cause depression, death of loved one has an O.R of 2.036 (C.I=1.004-2.97) to cause depression and rape with an O.R of 2.325 to cause depression in students. Social factors like low social support has a 2.917 likelihood to cause depression in students as well as those who attend religious activities 1-2 times have a 4.275 risk of developing depression than those who attend religious activities more times. Health factors such as alcohol use was found to be a determinant of depression with a 3.787 risk of those who take alcohol to develop depression those who do not take alcohol. Likewise poor sleep pattern which has been found to mediate between pain like traumatic experiences and depression was found to have a 2.893 risk of causing depression in students (C.I=1.439-5.815) CONCLUSION: Interventions advised include encouragement of physical activities to enhance social connectedness, public health education to reduce or stop substance abuse by these depressed persons are a part of the recommendations on reducing prevalence of depression and enhancing knowledge of depression.