Investigation and Comparison of Depression Level among Students at Bandar Abbas University of Medical Sciences Download PDF

Introduction: depression is an illness that may influence all strata and age groups in a society. One of these strata is the youth and particularly the students who are susceptible to depression due to various reasons such as entering a new environment, the huge bulk of educational materials, and distance from family. Objectives: the objective of the present study is to investigate and compare depression level among students of different disciplines at Bandar Abbas University of Medical Sciences, 2015. Method: this is a descriptive-analytic study conducted by using university student depression inventory (USDI). Data were collected using census method and totally, 2229 participants completed the questionnaire. SPSS 19 software, Kruskal–Wallis test, and Mann-Whitney U test were used for data analysis. Findings: this study indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between depression level of male and female students (P<0.01); male students had a higher depression level. There was a statistically significant difference between depression level in different educational disciplines (P<0.001). Furthermore, there was a statistically significant difference between depression level in terms of the places of residence (P<0.011). The students living at father’s home had the highest depression level. There was no statistically significant difference between other variables (father’s job, parents’ educational level, marital status, previous family experience of depression, smoking, use of antidepressants in the family, and birth order) and students’ depression level. Conclusion: According to the results of this study indicating a relatively high prevalence of depression among students of different disciplines of medical sciences, it is necessary to take necessary actions such as improving the student consultation-providing system and providing more welfare and entertainment facilities to balance these conditions which would naturally result in undesirable consequences for the students and the educational system.