Abstract
ObjectiveTo explore the relationship between family environment and depressive symptoms and to evaluate the influence of hard and soft family environmental factors on depression levels in a large sample of university students in China.MethodsA multi-stage stratified sampling procedure was used to select 6,000 participants. The response rate was 88.8%, with 5,329 students completing the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Family Environment Scale Chinese Version (FES-CV), which was adapted for the Chinese population. Differences between the groups were tested for significance by the Student’s t-test; ANOVA was used to test continuous variables. The relationship between soft family environmental factors and BDI were tested by Pearson correlation analysis. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was conducted to model the effects of hard environmental factors and soft environmental factors on depression in university students.ResultsA total of 11.8% of students scored above the threshold of moderate depression(BDI≧14). Hard family environmental factors such as parent relationship, family economic status, level of parental literacy and non-intact family structure were associated with depressive symptoms. The soft family environmental factors—conflict and control—were positively associated with depression, while cohesion was negatively related to depressive symptom after controlling for other important associates of depression. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the soft family environment correlates more strongly with depression than the hard family environment.ConclusionsSoft family environmental factors—especially cohesion, conflict and control—appeared to play an important role in the occurrence of depressive symptoms. These findings underline the significance of the family environment as a source of risk factors for depression among university students in China and suggest that family-based interventions and improvement are very important to reduce depression among university students.
Highlights
Depression is estimated to affect 3%–16.9% of individuals worldwide [1]
A total of 11.8% of students scored above the threshold of moderate depression(BDI≧14)
Hard family environmental factors such as parent relationship, family economic status, level of parental literacy and non-intact family structure were associated with depressive symptoms
Summary
University students have a higher risk of developing depression than the general population [2,3]. Depression was present in nearly one-third (a weighted mean prevalence of 30.6%) of all evaluated students, which constitutes a depression rate that is 9% higher than that observed in the general population [4]. Depression can influence the quality of life of university students, affecting their social and family relationships, academic productivity and physical functioning [5,6]. This decreases their ability and motivation to learn, resulting in poor academic performance and even dropping out of university [7]. Depression has consistently been identified as a significant risk factor for suicide attempts in university students [8,9]; it is imperative to explore the factors influencing the development of depression in university students
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