Depressive disorders in school children of suburban India: an epidemiological study

There is a dearth of research on the prevalence of depressive disorders in children from suburban and rural areas in the Indian subcontinent. Therefore, the present study was aimed at assessing the prevalence of depressive disorders and the associated risk factors in the primary and secondary school children in suburban India.

This was a cross-sectional, school-based epidemiological study involving 1,851 children from standard I to VII age group. Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children (K-SADS-PL), a semi-structured interview was used to diagnose depression in this sample.

Using K-SADS-PL, prevalence of depressive disorder was 3.13% (n = 58); major depressive disorder was diagnosed in 15 (0.81%), dysthymia in 28 (1.51%) and depressive disorder NOS in 15 (0.81%). Age (OR 1.396, CI 1.121-1.738), class attendance (OR 0.251, CI 0.103-0.613), family history of psychiatric illness (OR 0.204, CI 0.069-0.605) and birth complications (OR 0.128, CI 0.029-0.558) emerged as significant predictors of depression; the model explained 24.1-32.3% of the variance in this sample.

The present study confirms the findings from previous studies that childhood depression is a distinct diagnostic entity affecting a significant number of children and adolescents.