Prevalence of Severe Depression among Adolescents in Rural Area of Odisha, India

In adolescents, major depression is projected to rank the second most cause of human illness by the year 2022. Unfortunately, half of the depressed adolescents go undiagnosed in primary care settings.

The objective is to estimate the prevalence of severe depression among rural adolescents and also to identify few epidemiological determinants causing severe depression.

This cross-sectional study included 341 adolescents from a selected village of Balasore, Odisha.

A semi-structured questionnaire, and "Beck's Depression Inventory II" questionnaire for screening depression.

Only 24 (7%) of adolescents were found to be having severe depression. The subcategories of depression showed mild mood disturbance in 8.8%, borderline depression in 15.2%, and moderate depression in 12% individuals. Almost 267 (78.2%) were between 15 and 19 years of age. The mean age (standard deviation) of the participants was 16 ± 1.9 years. Majority of the participants belonged to joint family and lower middle-class status as per the Modified Kuppuswamy Scale.

Female gender was found to be significantly associated with depression (P = 0.006). Other contributory factors for depression were sleep duration (<6 h), parental fighting, and socioeconomic status.