Prevalence of depression among Iranian children and adolescents: An updated systematic review and meta‐analysis

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: One of the most common mental disorders among children and adolescent is depression. Some of the conducted studies indicate a too‐high prevalence of depression, which cannot be generalized to the entire country. So the pooled estimation of the results of different studies is very important to reach valid results. So the current study aimed to determine the prevalence of depression among Iranian children and adolescents using an updated systematic review and meta‐analysis. METHODS: A random‐effects model was used to estimate the pooled prevalence of depression (I (2) = 99.7% and Cochran's Q, p < 0.001). To assess the effect of different factors on heterogeneity, the univariate meta‐regression model was used. Publication bias was evaluated by Beggs and Eggers tests as well as funnel plots. Data were analyzed by STATA v 11 (StataCorp.). The significance level of the tests was considered less than 0.05. RESULTS: The prevalence of depression was 33.3% (95% CI: 27.3−39.2). The most prevalence estimated using the Beak questionnaire (57.1% [95% CI: 50.2−64.0]) and the lowest was estimated using the K‐SADS‐PL (9.0% [95% CI: 4.0−13.6]). This estimate among females was more than among males (47.2% [95% CI: 35.4−58.9] vs. 30.5 [95% CI: 7.4−53.6]). Regarding the geographical region, the most and the lowest amount of depression was seen in the central with 41.7% (95% CI: 19.2−64.3) and southern region with 21.9% (95% CI: 14.2−29.6), respectively. CONCLUSION: The high prevalence of depressive disorders in Iranian children emphasizes the importance of prevention measures for these disorders.