Depression and Psycho-Social Well Being in emerging adulthood

Abstract

Introduction Depression is defined as a state of feeling sad, severe hopelessness and dejection: a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way. Depression imposes itself not only on adults but it takes its toll on children and adolescents as well. Normally, parents want their children to be happy. Despite their best to provide and protect them, children still encounter disappointments, frustrations, or real heartbreak. The current study is an attempt to investigate depression and possible risk factors in adolescents in relation to psycho-social well-being in adolescents. Methodology A cross sectional survey research design was adopted in order to address the problem of depressive symptoms, risk factors and psychosocial well-being of adolescents in secondary schools. A total of 400 male and female emerging adults served as subjects in the study. Questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data. While qualitative data was collected with the use of focus group discussion and interview to buttress quantitative data collected with questionnaire. Chi- square was used to analyze the quantitative data and a thematic content assessment was used to analyze qualitative data. Results The results revealed that depression is negatively correlated with various dimensions of psycho-social well being and there exist a significant difference among male and female adolescents in context of depression. Again, findings reveal that the psychosocial well-being of adolescents is significantly affected by anxiety symptom. Equally it was retained that loneliness, low self-esteem and aggression has a significant negative effect on adolescents psychosocial well-being. It is thus, recommended that it will necessary to utilize the results of this study to implement programs or courses in psychology that will inform people about the early signs of adolescent risk factors and symptoms of depression. Implication This implies that a good proportion of adolescents in secondary schools are seen to portray some symptoms and risk factors for depression which has negatively affected their well-being both socially and psychologically. It is hope that this study will be helpful in highlighting the undesirable nature of depression among adolescents.