Self esteem, depression and alcohol use among third year students doing social sciences at Makerere University

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between self-esteem, depression, and alcohol use among third-year Social Science students at Makerere University. Existing literature has established that these three constructs are interconnected, with self-esteem widely reported to influence depression, and depression, in turn, hypothesized to drive alcohol use as a coping mechanism, yet limited empirical attention had been paid to this pathway within the Ugandan university context. A correlational research design was adopted, and data were collected from 144 third-year students at the School of Social Sciences using a self-administered questionnaire comprising the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Data were analyzed using Pearson Product-Moment correlation coefficients to test the three research hypotheses. The findings revealed a very weak, statistically non-significant positive relationship between self-esteem and alcohol use (r = .095, p = .257), and a similarly weak, non-significant positive relationship between depression and alcohol use (r = .064, p = .449). A weak but statistically significant positive relationship was found between self-esteem and depression (r = .358, p < .001), although the direction ran counter to the predominantly inverse relationship reported in the literature. Overall, the hypothesized mediation pathway linking self-esteem to alcohol use through depression was not supported in this sample, suggesting that cultural, social, and religious factors may play a more proximal role in shaping alcohol use among Ugandan university students than individual psychological variables alone. The study recommends that university counselling services incorporate depression screening and culturally adapted self-esteem interventions, and that future research employ longitudinal designs and locally validated instruments