University education is recognized as an important period of life that determines the future trajectories and success of individuals. It is also the time when the onset of depression peaks. In this paper, we use data on 4,182 students from a selective university to identify the main factors associated with symptoms of depression among this cohort. Besides socio-demographic characteristics that are largely out of the university's control, we pay specific attention to the role of students’ satisfaction with various aspects of their university life. We find that controlling for potential confounders, satisfaction is negatively associated with depression. We also find that survey data routinely collected by the university could be used to identify individuals at high risk of future depression.

It has been previously shown that depression is negatively associated with the academic performance of university students. These results, however, rely on university grades and, thus, do not allow comparison of students from different educational organizations. As a result, the relationship between academic performance and depression on a population level is not well known. We use data from the Russian panel study 'TrEC' that tracks 4,893 participants since 2011. This panel is nationally representative for one age cohorts (13-14 years old in 2011). The data set includes educational outcomes of students measured using standardized tests (PISA scores and scores at Unified State Examination). In 2018, participants filled PHQ-9. At that point, many of them were in the first year of their Master's programs. The prevalence of depression (PHQ-9 > = 10) was 20% for women and 11% for men. We find no association between PHQ-9 scores for women and their PISA scores, Pearson's r = 0.01 (CI95% = [-0.03, 0.06]), however we find positive association for men, r = 0.16 (CI95% = [0.11, 0.20]). This corresponds to a relative risk of being depressed for the highest performing men (PISA levels 5 and 6) of 1.6. This result holds after controlling for the socioeconomic status of participants and the fact of studying at university. For those participants who study at a university, it is possible to additionally control for the selectivity of their university as the average academic performance of enrollees is publicly available information for Russian universities. We find that the personal educational outcomes rather than the selectivity of the university explain the results. It is generally believed that educational outcomes are negatively associated with depression. We find no such association for women and a positive association for men. This result might be particular to Russia or to a certain age cohort. In any case, they highlight the need for more research in this area. Key message We use data from a nationally representative panel and find that educational outcomes measured by a standardized test are positively associated with depression for young men but not for young women.

Social integration is known to be beneficial for mental health. However, it is not clear whether this applies to online as well as offline relationships. In this paper, we explore the association between online friendship and symptoms of depression among adolescents. We combine data from the popular social networking site with survey data on high school students (N = 144) and find that integration into the online network is a protective factor against depression. We also find that not all online connections are equally important: friendship ties with students from the same schools are stronger associated with depression than outside ties. In addition to friendship ties, we explore the effect of online interaction (“likes”). Overall, our results suggest that online relationships are associated with depression as well as offline friendship. However, the effect of more distant online connections is limited, while immediate social environment and peer relationships at school are more important.

BackgroundHigher academic performance is known to be negatively associated with the odds and severity of depressive symptoms. These results, however, were mostly obtained by using data on students from one educational organization or by relying on relative measures of academic performance such as grade point average. As a result, the relationship between academic performance measured by standardized tests and depressive symptoms at the population level is less known.MethodsWe use the data from the Russian study 'Trajectories in Education and Careers' (N = 4,400). This panel is nationally representative for one age cohorts and includes information on educational outcomes measured by an internationally recognized standardized test (PISA) at the age of 15 along with self-reported depression symptoms 6 years later (PHQ-9). ResultsThe prevalence of depression was 20% among women and 12% among men. We find no association between PHQ-9 scores for women and their PISA scores, however we find positive linear association for men (r = 0.15; CI95% = [0.10, 0.20]). This results in an increase of risk of being depressed from 4% for low-performing men to 17% for high-performing men. This result holds after controlling for the socioeconomic status of participants, the fact of studying at university, and the selectivity of their university.ConclusionsIt is generally believed that higher academic performance is negatively associated with depression. Our results indicate that the association might be more complex than has been previously thought and that high academic performance might be a risk factor for depression.