Determinants of Anxiety and Depression Among University Students of Lahore

AbstractBenefits from an improved understanding of mental health of young adults, particularly students, affecting their academic performance are likely to be numerous. Thus, we aimed at evaluating anxiety and depression among annual and semester university students of Lahore, Pakistan. A cross-sectional study of 7  months duration was designed by enrolling a total of 404 students from two private and two public sector universities of Lahore. We found significant differences in frequency distribution with regard to age (p = 0.003), marital status (p = 0.01), living status (p = 0.004), and reasons affecting of mental health (p = 0.004) between annual and semester system students. Students enrolled in annual system exhibited higher odds of anxiety, mild (OR 2.7,p = 0.019), and extremely severe (OR 2.6,p = 0.002), compared to semester students. In overall assessment of university students, after univariate analysis, multivariate analysis demonstrated significant association of depression with male students (OR 2.3,p = 0.001), age ≤ 22 years (OR 2.8,p = 0.0005) and living status (OR 5.96,p = 0.0005). Similarly, as for anxiety, only male students demonstrated higher odds of anxiety (OR 2.8,p = 0.0005). As expected, compared to a single reason, multiple reasons affecting student’s mental health demonstrated significant association with all three determinants of mental health, i.e., stress (OR 0.36,p = 0.0005), anxiety (OR 0.31,p...
Source: International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction - Category: Addiction Source Type: research