title: [Prevalence and associated factors with depressive symptoms in Health Sciences students from a private university in Lima, Peru 2010].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Depressive symptoms in health sciences students are common, these might be potentially detrimental.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms and its associated factors in students from the Health Sciences Faculty of the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas in Lima (Peru), June 2010.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional analytic study; a pre-consented survey was applied to the population 590/869 students. Zung's abbreviated scale was used to measure depressive symptoms. To evaluate de associated factors, logistic regression was used, p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean age was 18.97 ± 2.45 years and 71.1% were women, 19.6% were migrants and 62.5% were medical students. The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 31.2% in the whole population and in medical students was 33.6%. Depressive symptoms were not associated in bivariate analysis with sex, career, having failed a course, living alone or being a migrant (p>0.05). In the multivariate analysis, significant statistical association was found between depressive symptoms and dissatisfaction with the own academic performance (OR=2.13 CI95%1.47-3.08), dissatisfaction with the current economic status (OR=1.93 CI95%1.24-2.99) and living with a relative external to the nuclear family (OR=1.62 CI95%1.07-2.45).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A high prevalence of depressive symptoms was found, especially in medical students; being dissatisfaction with academic performance, economic status and living with a relative external to the nuclear family associated factors that could be taken into account in order to build preventive programs.
authors.affiliation: Escuela de Medicina, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Lima, Perú. refranpe7@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Reneé
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pereyra-Elías
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ocampo-Mascaró
authors.forename: Vera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Silva-Salazar
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vélez-Segovia
authors.forename: A Daniel da
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Costa-Bullón
authors.forename: Luis Miguel
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Toro-Polo
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vicuña-Ortega
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006281:Health Occupations; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010568:Peru; D015995:Prevalence; D017149:Private Sector; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities