Abstract
IntroductionMental distress is becoming a common health problem among university students. There is limited information in this regard in Ethiopia. This study was aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of mental distress among students in Adama University.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in March2011. Four hundred and thirteen students were participated in the study. Simple random sampling technique was applied to select the study participants. Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20(SRQ-20) was used to assess the mental distress. Respondents who had a score of eleven and above on the SRQ-20 were considered as mentally distressed.ResultsThe prevalence of mental distress was 21.6%. Family history of mental illness (AOR=2.30, 95%CI: 1.10 - 4.81), frequent conflicts with fellows (AOR=2.26, 95%CI: 1.10 - 4.85), Khat (Catha Edulis) chewing (AOR=2.23, 95% CI: 1.14 - 4.35) and not attending religious program regularly were factors associated with mental distress. Being in second year of their education less likely associated (AOR=0.41, 95%CI: 0.18 - 0.91) with mental distress.ConclusionAbout one fifth of the students were found to be mentally distressed. Designing prevention sand treatments programs addressing the identified factors is important.
Highlights
Mental distress is becoming a common health problem among university students .There is limited information in this regard in Ethiopia
Mental distress is a mental health problem which manifests with different levels of depressive, anxiety, panic or somatic symptoms.It presents with confused emotions, hallucination and related symptoms without being ill in a medical sense [1,2].This problem has a direct and indirect effects on the individual's psychology, social functioning and affects many aspect of life including relationships, work and health [3, 4]
Significant proportion of the world population is affected by mental distress of which tertiary education students are the once [58].Studies revealed that more than half of students in different countries like Singapore and United States of America (USA) had experienced emotional distress [9,10]
Summary
Mental distress is becoming a common health problem among university students .There is limited information in this regard in Ethiopia. This study was aimed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of mental distress among students in Adama University. Various factors were reported to be associated with the development of mental distress among university students. Separation from pre-existing social support, frustration with academic challenges, social problems, and threats due to high expectations from parents; teachers were reported attributes of mental distress which could present variably in different contexts [13,14,15,16,17,18]. The main reason is the lack of data on the extent of the problem [22].This study was aimed to determine the prevalence of mental distress and identify the contributing factors among students in Adama University, Ethiopia
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