Abstract
BackgroundDepressive symptom among adolescent is prevalent but advisory service for this symptom is limited, particularly in university.Objectives(1) To identify depressive students in health science faculties, (2) To evaluate the consequence of depression advisory service by community pharmacist, compared between a group counseling and an individual one.MethodsA two-phase study was designed—a cross-sectional study followed by an experimental study. Health science students were screened by CES-D questionnaire. The prevalence and predictors of depressed mood were determined. Depressive students were then invited to the experimental study. Participants were assigned into 2 groups, by stratified random sampling, and followed up for 16 weeks. Group 1 received a group counselling, group 2 received an individual counselling from a trained pharmacist. Outcomes measured were the CES-D score and quality of life.ResultsThe prevalence of depressed mood students was 13.7 % (195/1421). Students in year 2nd and year 3rd, nursing and medicine students, and GPA were strongly associated with the CES-D score (P < 0.05). Sixty-eight depressive students were assigned into the experiment. The CES-D scores of both groups were significantly reduced from the baseline (P < 0.001). The post-test score of group 2 was lower than group 1 (17.7 ± 4.5 vs 20.1 ± 4.6, P = 0.038). At week 16, both counselling types significantly increased mean score of physical health (P < 0.001) whereas score of mental health was increased significantly only by the individual counselling, from 37.9 ± 9.9 to 43.1 ± 8.4 (P = 0.036).ConclusionsDepressive symptom among health science students is considerably high. Year of study, faculty and GPA are significant predictors of this disorder. Trained community pharmacists can effectively screen and provide advisory service. Individual counseling is more effective than using group advice.
Highlights
Depressive symptom among adolescent is prevalent but advisory service for this symptom is limited, in university
Public health school had the lowest response rate at 48.7 % while the highest rate was from pharmacy school at 77.5 %, giving overall response rate of 57.5 %
Depressive students were found in high proportion among public health and medicine students, whereas the pharmacy and nursing students were fewer
Summary
Depressive symptom among adolescent is prevalent but advisory service for this symptom is limited, in university. A previous study estimated prevalence of depression or anxiety among undergraduate students was 15.6 % (Eisenberg et al 2007), while the more recent one found 9–13 % (Richards et al 2014). Students normally experienced their first episode in college (Mowbray et al 2006). Many depressive students have not yet been diagnosed (Ovuga et al 2005). If those were identified and provided appropriate health service, serious consequences of depression and suicide would be reduced (Wang et al 2007)
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