Correlates of depression among university students: case study of Makerere University

Abstract

University students are a special group of people that are enduring a critical transitory period in which they are going from adolescence to adulthood and can be one of the most stressful times in the person’s life. Trying to fit in, maintain good grades, plan for the future and be away from home often causes anxiety for a lot of students. As a reaction to this stress, some students get depressed. They find that they cannot get themselves together. They may cry all of the time, skip classes or isolate themselves without realizing they are depressed. The average age of onset is also on a decline, making depression a particularly silent problem area for university student populations where over two-thirds of young people do not talk about or seek help for mental health problems. It was important to identify the possible correlates of depression among university students. Thus, this dissertation reports the correlates of depression among university students where the case study was school of Statistics and Planning in Makerere University using the chi-square test of independence and one way ANOVA. This was done using primary data and data was collected online using questionnaires. The results suggest that there was a statistically significant relationship between gender, performance and depression among university students. There was no significant relationship between age, social support, and parent’s occupation, type of accommodation, year of study, study major and parent’s relationship with depression among university students. Female students should be helped with studies to help them recover from depression through women empowerment, education for females, encouragement and strengthening females. Students should be encouraged to leave the past behind and move in to the future to enable them perform better in their academics. This can be done through engaging students so much and making them busy in order to occupy their minds with work not worries.