Assessment of Depression, Anxiety and Stress and It's Association with Suicide and Substance Abuse among Adolescents in Bangalore-A Cross Section Study

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Adolescent accounts to one fifth of India's population. Investment in adolescent health will help India to reap the benefits of demographic dividend. Few of them are exposed to various health issues, out of which mental health is gaining importance. So the current study was designed to assess the burden of depression, anxiety and stress of PreUniversity college students of Bangalore and its association with suicide and substance abuse. METHODOLOGY: Cross sectional study conducted among 389 students of selected colleges of Bangalore through convenient sampling technique. Pre tested semi structured questionnaire was administered and analysed in SPSS 17. Depression, anxiety and stress among students were assessed through DASS score-21 scale. Fischer exact test and chi square test were applied to find the association. RESULTS: Mean age (±SD) of the students was 16.7 yrs(0.66) and 197 (50.6%) were males. Among 389 students 136 (35%) belonged to government college; 177 (45.5%) to private and rest to aided college. While 205 (52.7%) were in commerce branch, 133 (34.2%) were in science branch and rest belonged to arts branch. Prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress in past one week were 38.82%, 50.12% & 19.79% respectively. Anxiety was more common among females (p=0.001); private college students (χ 2 = 18.51, p<0.01) and among science branch (χ 2 = 17.88, p<0.01). Stress was