Prevalencia de depresión e ideas autolíticas y factores asociados en estudiantes de la carrera de Medicina de la Universidad de Cuenca. 2022

Abstract

Background: Depression is a highly prevalent and disabling mental disorder caused by many factors which include personal, cognitive, social, familial and genetic. Morover, the study on depression must be multidisciplinary, since its main outcome is suicide, which is a pathology that ranks in Ecuador as the second cause of death in ages between 15 and 29 years. Objective: To determine the prevalence of depression and autolytic ideas and associated factors in medical students at the University of Cuenca. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted, from which a sample of 279 students was taken, calculated with the formula for known universe. Two scales were applied: the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) related to depression and the Beck Suicidal Ideation Scale (SSI). Tables were designed to determine the association between depression, autolytic ideas, and associated factors, the OR was obtained with its 95% CI and to determine the statistical significance of the differences that were found, the p value was obtained by means of the Chi-square and values less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: The prevalence of depression and suicidal ideation in medical students was 65.9% and 24.4%, respectively. It was identified that depression and not having a civil partner were the only ones that presented a statistically significant association OR 5.056 (P=0.035). Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of depression in medical students, predominantly in women.