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Prevalence and Associated Factors of Depression among Medical Students of Herat University

Abdul Fattah Najm, Mina Alekozay, Rahim Bakhsh Faqiryar, Aziz-ur-Rahman Niazi

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the world that causes disabling diseases around the globe. More than one million people live with depression in Afghanistan. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and associated factors of depression among medical students of Herat University in west of Afghanistan. A cross sectional study was conducted on 293 students who were selected by a stratified simple random sampling technique from the Faculty of Medicine at Herat University. Sociodemographic characteristics of participants were collected using a structured questionnaire; data on depression were collected using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ- 9). Data were analyzed in IBM SPSS Statistics (version 27). Of the 293 participants, 166 (56.7%) were girls and 127 (43.3%) were boys. The mean age of participants was 21.5 ± 1.6 years. Over two-thirds of participants (69.6%) had depression, of which 6.8% suffered from severe depression. General health status and nutrition were significantly associated with depression, while gender, academic stage, economic status, original and current residence of participants were not significantly associated with depression. This is the first study to assess the prevalence and associated factors of depression among university students in Afghanistan, and adds to the current literature about magnitude and risk factors of depression in low- and middle-income countries. Results obtained in this study can be used as a baseline for more comprehensive studies on the prevalence and risk factors of depression among university students in Afghanistan.