Associations among Multi-systematic Factors and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescent Students

Objectives: The risks of depression among adolescents are from multi-systematic (personal, family/parental, and school) factors. But there are little known about the correlation between those risk factors of depressive symptoms and multi-systematic characteristics. The objective of the study was to investigate the association between depressive symptoms and their personal, family/parental, and school risk factors in school-based adolescents. Methods: The authors conducted a cross-sectional randomized study on adolescent school population with probability proportional sampling to choose sample sizes in each school district. Data were collected face-to-face through training visits to subjects. After having screened 1,009 subjects with response rate of 99.11%, the authors received 1,000 copies of valid questionnaire (including Beck Depression Inventory-II, Maudsley Personality Inventory, and the adaptability, partnership, growth, affection, and resolve [APGAR] index as well as the information of their school background. Results: The prevalence of adolescents (14.75 ± 0.90 years) with depressive symptoms was 25.8%. Their risk factors for having depressive symptoms in logistic regression were those who had higher score in neuroticism (OR = 1.21, p ＜ 0.05), who had lower score in extroversion (OR = 0.83, p ＜ 0.05), and who had poorer family function (OR = 0.89, p ＜ 0.05) after adjusting the effects of sex and history of substance use (-2 log likelihood = 710.48, d.f. = 9, p ＜ 0.001). Conclusion: Our study data showed an association between depressive symptoms and multi-systematic risk factors. Based on the study findings, the authors recommend that the comprehensive program should include multiple intervention components, and that each of those components needs to be addressed for risk factors in different domains.