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. 2023 Jan 11;10(1):141.
doi: 10.3390/children10010141.

Prevalence and Determinants of Depressive Symptoms among Young Adolescents in Malaysia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Sarbhan Singh  1 , Chee Herng Lai  1 , Nuur Hafizah Md Iderus  1 , Sumarni Mohd Ghazali  1 , Lonny Chen Rong Qi Ahmad  1 , Lim Mei Cheng  1 , Mohamad Nadzmi Nadzri  1 , Asrul Anuar Zulkifli  1 , Jeyanthi Suppiah  1 , Rafdzah Ahmad Zaki  2 , Nik Daliana Nik Farid  2 , Rama Krishna Supramanian  2 , Awatef Amer Nordin  3 , Chong Zhuo Lin  4 , Kushilpal Kaur  5 , Nur'ain Mohd Ghazali  1
Affiliations

Prevalence and Determinants of Depressive Symptoms among Young Adolescents in Malaysia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Sarbhan Singh et al. Children (Basel). .

Abstract

Depression is the most common mental health problem affecting adolescents globally, wherein its increasing prevalence together with the negative health impacts escalates the need for further research in this area. This work determined the prevalence and factors associated with depressive symptoms among young adolescents in Malaysia. A total of 1350 adolescent aged 13 to 14 years in school across nine secondary schools in Selangor state, Malaysia participated in a cross-sectional study. Independent variables were examined using the using the Global School-Based Student Health Survey included age, gender, ethnicity, alcohol intake, smoking and illicit drug use, loneliness, bullying, parental marital status, income and supervision; and the Health Literacy and Stigma questionnaire examined mental health literacy levels. Depressive symptoms were the dependent variable which was examined using the Center for Epidemiology Study Depression (CESD) instrument. Prevalence of depressive symptoms among all participants was 19 % (95% CI [16.9, 21.2]), with a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms being reported among females 26.3% (95% CI [23.0, 29.8]) compared to males 11.7% (95% CI [9.4, 14.4]). Determinants namely females (AOR = 3.83; 95% CI [2.66, 5.52]), smoking (AOR = 6.16; 95% CI [3.15, 12.05]), been bullied (AOR = 3.70; 95% CI [2.51, 5.47]), felt lonely (AOR = 10.46; 95% CI [7.09, 15.42]) and having no parental supervision (AOR = 1.79; 95% CI [1.26, 2.53]) significantly increased the odds of depressive symptoms among all adolescents in the multivariate model. In addition, feeling lonely, being bullied and smoking were identified as common significant determinants of depressive symptoms across both genders. Feeling lonely (65% to 71%) and being bullied (10% to 19%) were ranked as the most important determinants of depressive symptoms among young adolescents. Tackling these factors would be instrumental in helping decision makers formulate depression prevention strategies and activities for adolescents.

Keywords: Malaysia; adolescents; depressive symptoms; determinants.

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Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflict of interest, no competing financial interests and personal relationships to be declared by the authors for this study. The final version of the manuscript has been read and approved by all authors.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Rank order of important variables based on percentage (%) increase in r square, for each model.
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