[Prevalence of Depressive and Anxious Symptomatology in 14-18 ys-old Students from a Private School in Medellin]

Abstract

Objective: This study describes prevalence of depressive and anxious symptoms together with family, environmental and personal risk factors in a group of adolescents between 14 and 18 years of age in a private school of Medellín.

Methods: An analytic observational cross sectional study was performed in 152 adolescents, evaluating sociodemographic aspects and prevalence of depressive and anxious symptomatology, as established through BDI-II and BAI.

Results: Average age was 15.4 ± 0.9 years old, with a 25% prevalence of anxiety symptoms and 25.7% of depressive symptoms. From the 38 (25%) students with BAI positive, 26 (68.4%) were BDI positive, and from the 39 (25.6%) students with BDI positive, 26 (66.7%) were BAI positive.

Conclusions: the risk factors for anxiety and depressive symptomatology were: being a woman, being a victim of bullying and abuse. Having friends was the protective factors for depressive symptomatology. There was a statistical association between self-report of depressive and anxiety symptomatology; between the anxiety self-report and the depressive symptomatology; as well as between depressive and anxiety symptomatology and parents' perception of such symptoms.

Keywords: Depresión; Depression; adolescent; adolescente; ansiedad; anxiety; estudiantes; factores de riesgo; risk factors; students.