ASSESSMENT OF THE PREVALENCE OF DIAGNOSED CLINICAL DEPRESSION

ABSTRACT

Depression is a mental disorder that usually manifests as feelings of sadness, loneliness and mental breakdown while retaining the ability to carry out daily activities and tasks in mild cases, to feelings of low self-esteem, self-blame, anger, peevishness, inability to perform daily activities and tasks, suicidal ideation and suicide in the worst of cases. This study was aimed at determining the prevalence of clinically diagnosed depression and the use of antidepressants among final year undergraduate students of the University of Benin as well as to determine the adherence, side effects and outcome of the antidepressant used by the students. Questionnaires were distributed to the 319 final year clinical students of the College of Medicine, School of Dentistry and Faculty of Pharmacy. Results showed that ninety percent (90.0%) of the respondents were knowledgeable about depression. Symptoms of depression were reported in 20.0% of the respondents with 16.6% having moderate symptoms of depression and 3.4% having moderately severe symptoms of depression. Interestingly, the same 20.0% used antidepressants and 14.7% did not adhere to their regimen. Side effects were experienced majorly by respondents (16.3%) who had depression and did not adhere to their treatment regimen. There is a need for resources to be channeled into research leading to the production of antidepressants with lesser side effects. For future studies, clinical examination should be incorporated into research on depression, besides the use of questionnaires to further validate the findings.