Resumen

GUAVITA FALLA, Piedad Marcela  y  SANABRIA FERRAND, Pablo Alfonso. Depressive symptoms prevalence, in one medical student population. Universidad Militar Nueva Granada School of Medicine. Bogota-Colombia. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2006, vol.54, n.2, pp.76-87. ISSN 0120-0011.

Background. Depressive disorder is one of the most investigated clinic entities in medical population and even depressive symptoms have been preliminary studied at medical schools. Unusually high stress and depression levels among medical students have important consequences that are likely to persist beyond the duration of medical education. Objectives. Determining the prevalence of depressive symptoms, its severity and associated factors in student population at Universidad Militar Nueva Granada medical school from first to tenth semester in Bogotá city. Materials and methods. Cross-sectional epidemiological study. Non-probabilistic sample of 295 medical students aged 17-28 (81% from total population). The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale was administered to the subjects in their classroom obtaining the depressive symptoms prevalence and then classifying it in depressive levels. Factors like age, gender, academic semester, family members, and if student had military parents were evaluated. Each semester was classified in three categories: low, medium and high, according to adaptation, academic workload, and transition from basic to clinic sciences. Correlation analysis and chi-square were used for evaluating the association between depressive symptoms and the factors mentioned above. Results. Depressive symptoms prevalence was 26, 1% for mild severity level, 21, 7% for moderate level and 5, 4 for severe level. Global prevalence was 53, 2%. It was shown that this prevalence decreased from the age of 21 upward, but like between age and depressive symptoms, there wasn’t significant association. It was found an important difference between males and females, with females having more depressive symptoms (p=0,028). Also there were significant associations between depressive symptoms and low semester levels (p=0,004), students without military parents (p=0,012), and subjects living with grandparents (p=0,011). Conclusions. Depressive symptoms have an important representation in medical student population. Medical students had twice probability to suffer depressive symptoms than general population. The results are useful for mental health analysis at university environments and to guide prospective studies. Further epidemiological investigations and clinic evaluation at medical schools are necessary for reach an exact and reliable diagnostic level. Likewise, promotion and prevention health activities that detect vulnerable subjects are very important at public health and preventive psychiatry.

Palabras clave : depression; students; health occupations; classification; epidemiologic studies; preventive psychiatry; mental health; Colombia.

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