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Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Mental distress is becoming a common health problem in Ethiopia. The prevalence of mental distress is higher among university students than the general population. However, there is inadequate information in this regard in Ethiopia situations. The aim of this study was to determine the p...

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Autores principales: Tesfahunegn, Tadis Brhane, Gebremariam, Etsay Hailu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375136/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30760233
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-019-2051-5
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author Tesfahunegn, Tadis Brhane
Gebremariam, Etsay Hailu
author_facet Tesfahunegn, Tadis Brhane
Gebremariam, Etsay Hailu
author_sort Tesfahunegn, Tadis Brhane
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Mental distress is becoming a common health problem in Ethiopia. The prevalence of mental distress is higher among university students than the general population. However, there is inadequate information in this regard in Ethiopia situations. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated factors of mental distress among regular undergraduate students in Aksum University, North Ethiopia. METHODS: An institution based cross-sectional study was carried out among 919 students from May 10 to 20, 2016. Students were selected by stratified multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected using pre-tested and structured self-administered questionnaire. The collected data were entered into EPI-INFO version 7 and then exported to SPSS version 21 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression models were used to determine the factors associated with mental distress among university students. RESULTS: The prevalence of mental distress was nearly four in ten (39.6%) students. Being female sex (AOR =1.7, 95% CI: 1.20, 2.34), low social support (AOR = 3.05, 95% CI: 1.97, 4.72), freshman students (AOR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.10, 2.71), having had conflict with friends (AOR = 1.5,95% CI: 1.03, 1.90), financial problem (AOR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.59, 2.92), family history of mental disorder (AOR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.37, 3.21), scoring lower grade (AOR = 1.51,95% CI: 1.03, 1.61), argument with instructors (AOR = 1.52,95% CI: 1.12, 2.07) and field of study (AOR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.03, 2.37) were significantly associated with mental distress. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that the magnitude of mental distress among Aksum University students was high. Several social and economic factors were significantly associated with mental distress of the students. Therefore, mental distress needs special focus and timely corrective action by policy makers, university officials, and other concerned stakeholders.
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spelling pubmed-63751362019-02-26 Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study Tesfahunegn, Tadis Brhane Gebremariam, Etsay Hailu BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: Mental distress is becoming a common health problem in Ethiopia. The prevalence of mental distress is higher among university students than the general population. However, there is inadequate information in this regard in Ethiopia situations. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and associated factors of mental distress among regular undergraduate students in Aksum University, North Ethiopia. METHODS: An institution based cross-sectional study was carried out among 919 students from May 10 to 20, 2016. Students were selected by stratified multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected using pre-tested and structured self-administered questionnaire. The collected data were entered into EPI-INFO version 7 and then exported to SPSS version 21 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regression models were used to determine the factors associated with mental distress among university students. RESULTS: The prevalence of mental distress was nearly four in ten (39.6%) students. Being female sex (AOR =1.7, 95% CI: 1.20, 2.34), low social support (AOR = 3.05, 95% CI: 1.97, 4.72), freshman students (AOR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.10, 2.71), having had conflict with friends (AOR = 1.5,95% CI: 1.03, 1.90), financial problem (AOR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.59, 2.92), family history of mental disorder (AOR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.37, 3.21), scoring lower grade (AOR = 1.51,95% CI: 1.03, 1.61), argument with instructors (AOR = 1.52,95% CI: 1.12, 2.07) and field of study (AOR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.03, 2.37) were significantly associated with mental distress. CONCLUSION: This study has shown that the magnitude of mental distress among Aksum University students was high. Several social and economic factors were significantly associated with mental distress of the students. Therefore, mental distress needs special focus and timely corrective action by policy makers, university officials, and other concerned stakeholders. BioMed Central 2019-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC6375136/ /pubmed/30760233 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-019-2051-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Tesfahunegn, Tadis Brhane
Gebremariam, Etsay Hailu
Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
title Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
title_full Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
title_short Mental distress and associated factors among Aksum University students, Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
title_sort mental distress and associated factors among aksum university students, ethiopia: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375136/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30760233
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-019-2051-5
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