Epidemiological aspects of some mental health symptoms in undergraduates

Abstract

In this study, we identified the prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptomatology, and examined the relationships between these symptoms and socio-demographic characteristics in a sample of undergraduates in Southern Sri Lanka. A self-report, anonymous questionnaire was used. The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) and Spiel Berger’s Trait Anxiety Inventory (TAI) were utilized to measure depressive and anxiety symptoms respectively. A total of 1082 university undergraduates (mean age 22.5 years, SD = 1.36) was surveyed. Medical undergraduates reported the highest prevalence of elevated (CES-D scores greater than 15) depressive symptomatology (69.2%, n = 146) followed by Business Administration (63.2%, n = 91), Science (60.4%>, n = 84), Agriculture (59.6%, n = 122), and Humanities (54.3%, n = 208), x* (4, 1082) = 13.25, p < .01. There was an interaction between gender and age [F (2, 1076) = 3.45, p < .05]. Junior female undergraduates were more depressed than their male counterparts, but senior female undergraduates were less depressed than their male counterparts. Gender was a significant predictor of trait anxiety scores [F (1, 1076) = 7.33, p = 0.007], but the mean values of TAI scores (female: mean = 46.46, SD = 7.32; male: mean = 45.24, SD = 7.42) indicated no risk Family income was not associated with either depressive or anxiety symptoms. Depressive, but not anxiety, symptoms seem to pose a great threat to the personal well-being of the participants. Implications of these mental health issues on students’ learning skills need to be further investigated