Prevalence of Depression and the Impact of Psychosocial Factors in Undergraduate Students at a Private University in Kedah, Malaysia

The main objective of the study was to identify the rate of depressive symptoms in undergraduate students; to verify if the depressive symptoms rates increase with age and relationship between depressive symptoms and their gender distribution and to study the impact of psychosocial factors among them. Method: A pilot study was conducted in students of various undergraduate courses for a period of 3 months. Two sets of questionnaires, University Student Depression Inventory (USDI) and Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI) were distributed to the samples. The questionnaire also included the demographics, life style, psychosocial factors etc to focus on the prevalence of depression and the impact of psychosocial factors among the undergraduate students. The data collected was analyzed using statistical software. Results: Three hundred USDI forms were distributed and just 134 were usable for analysis as it did not contain any missing data. The participants were in the age range of 18 to 28 years, out of which 54 were male and 80 were female. Between male and female, male were found to be more depressed (mean USDI score of male = 66.98, of female = 60.76). Two hundred forms containing BDI II were distributed randomly among undergraduate students and only 53 forms were returned. 56.60% of the participants scored above minimal depression and 24.53% at moderate depression. Conclusion: The study found that undergraduate students who are not satisfied with their financial status and academic achievement are more likely to be depressed. In the future, the study period and the sample size can be increased to reduce the number of insignificant results to increase the generalizability of the data, hence achieving a more successful prevalence study.