title: Symptoms of depression and related factors among Spanish university students.
abstract: A 554-member stratified random sample of students at a Spanish university (65.9% women; aged 18-34 years) was screened for symptoms of depression using a new Castilian Spanish translation of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) that had been validated by back-translation. Mean CES-D score was 14.2 (SD = 10.3, range 0-54), with a significant difference between the scores of women (M = 15.5; SD = 10.9) and men (M = 11.8; SD = 8.4; t552 = 4.06, p < .0005). Some 33%, of the sample screened positive with the usual CES-D screening threshold of 16, and 16% with the threshold of 24 recommended by Clarke and coworkers. The symptoms most commonly experienced all or most of the time were hopelessness, given the maximum rating by 18.8% of students, difficulty in concentration (17.7%), fatigue (13.9%), inadequacy (13.0%), and disturbance of sleep (12.4%).
authors.affiliation: University of Santiago de Compostela, Faculty of Psychology, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, Campus Universitario Sur, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. pcfer@usc.es
authors.forename: Fernando L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Vázquez
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Blanco
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013030:Spain; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014175:Translating