Prevalence of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Sri Lankan Undergraduates

Abstract

While stress is an inevitable part of life, it is very present (Blanco et al., 2008) and becoming more prevalent among university students (Gallagher, 2008; Mackenzie et al., 2011). Therefore, depression, anxiety and stress or stressful life can be defined as reactions to what happen in daily lives and it can be seen from the students who are engaged in educational activities as their daily routine. Therefore, the mental health of the undergraduates has become an area of increasing concern worldwide. The topic was of interest because there was a huge gap between the contemporary understanding and the existing past ideas on the levels of depression, anxiety and stress among undergraduates. “In the USA, almost 10% of university students have been diagnosed with, or treated for, depression over the past 12 months” (Wolfram, 2010). The objective of this study is to examine the prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress within undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The research question of this study is as follows: Do undergraduates in Sri Lanka have depression, anxiety and stress?