Prevalence of depressive symptoms and its relation to demographic variables in high school students

In order to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms and to examine its relationship to demographic variables in late adolescents, questionnaires were administered on 3,254 high school students in Okinawa. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). The results were as follows: The SDS score distribution curve was near-normal. The mean SDS scores of males and females were 40.4 and 41.7, respectively. Overall, 53.4% of males and 61.4% of females had depressive symptomatology according to an SDS cut-off point of 40 or greater. There were significant differences in mean SDS scores and prevalence by gender. Females had higher depressive symptom scores. Both indicators of depressive symptomatology were higher than those in U.S. adolescents and Japanese adults. When controlling for the effect of school type, both male and female students living in urban ureas of the main island had more depressive symptoms than students living in rural areas of remote islands. When controlling for the effect of region, female students attending vocational high schools showed more depressive symptoms than other high school students. However, there was no difference by school type among male students. The high prevalence of depressive symptoms suggests that it is necessary to modify the assessment cut-off point for high school students and to promote further school mental health care.