[Prevalence of depressive symptoms in adolescents and young adults]

The objective of this work is to estimate the prevalence of depressive symptoms in three groups of adolescents and young adults (aged 16-25) from the city of San Sebastian. For that purpose 188, 189 and 160 young unemployed, students and workers, respectively, were selected by the method of quota. As screening instrument, an Spanish version of the CES-D (Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression) scale was used. Using the standard criterion of total score of the scale equal to or higher than 16, irrespective of the length of symptoms, a prevalence of 44.68% in unemployed and of 41.79% in students, opposite to 29.37% in workers (p less than 0.01 and p less than 0.05, respectively) was obtained. Taking into account the criterion of total score equal to or higher than 16, starting from symptoms that last three days at least, the rates were 18.08% in unemployed and 14.81% in students, opposite to 9.37% in workers (p less than 0.05 and "not significant", respectively). Stratifying by sex, it was observed that the differences among groups were at the expense of the female sex. These results suggest that a situation of unemployment seems to act as a depression-inducing factor, more important among female adolescents and young than among male adolescents and young.