Study of depression, anxiety and stress among school going adolescents

Abstract

Background: Adolescents; the bright hope of the future are characterized by many physical, emotional and developmental changes. However, during this stage, some of adolescents, experience anxious feeling, overwhelming sense of fear, depression and academic stress. Adolescents can experience various life stresses ranging from catastrophic or traumatic life events, persistent strain and daily hassles. Thus Present study was carried out to check the depression, anxiety and stress in this population. Material and Method: It is a cross sectional study, in which 200 adolescents were taken; equally boy and girls using purposive sampling. Assessment was done using Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-DASS (Hindi Version). The statistical analysis was carried out using the SPSS Windows 16.0 software package. The analysis of the obtained data was done using various descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The scores of students in all three domains of Depression, anxiety, and Stress scale were found to be remarkably correlated. It was seen that depression was significantly more among the female students than the male students. Conclusion: Overall findings suggest that these adolescents are at high risk of developing depression and anxiety disorder. Adolescents with stress need to be identified early and interventions to reduce academic stress needs to be provided which are likely to affect the occurrence and severity of depression and anxiety. Key words: Adolescents, depression, anxiety, stress