Presencia de trastorno depresivo en estudiantes de la División de Ciencias de la Salud de la Universidad Santo Tomás

Abstract

Depressive disorder is a multifactorial illness that includes symptoms such as grief, anger and disinterest that affects a large part of the population, especially women. Objective: To determine the presence of depressive disorder in students of the Health Sciences Division of Saint Thomas University in the first period of 2024. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional analytical observational study where 1274 students were taken into account with a sampling of 292 calculated by Epidat V4.1. In data collection, the validated Zung instrument was implemented with 20 questions in addition to 16 questions that include sociodemographic variables, habits, family aspects. For the univariate analysis with mean (SD), median (RIQ), absolute frequencies with percentages with normality in the Shapiro Wilk test and bivariate with Chi2, Fisher's exact and Anova to determine if there were statistically significant associations with values p≤0.05. Results: There was greater participation of the female sex (56.60%) in stratum 4 (43.40%), with a median age of 21 years (RIQ 18-23), with a high proportion of students in the sixth semester (41.89%), predominantly in the dental school (39.86%) with a mean of 5.20 (SD 3.57) hours of study. On the other hand, a significant association was found (p≤0.05) with students performing physical activity (76.60%). In addition, a relationship of presence of depressive symptoms was found in students who consumed alcohol (68.09%) with a frequency of 1 time per week (54.47%). Conclusions: Most participants showed mild levels of depression, with association between age, family history and physical activity.