title: Links between occupational activities and depressive mood in young adult populations.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To examine how occupational activities (work, school), separation from parents, environmental conditions, stressors ad social insertion affect on the prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and mental health care-seeking among young adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study conducted in two samples: 1) 19,136 subjective representative of the US non-institutionalized general population including 2082 18-26 y.o. subjects. 2) 2196 subjects representative of the students' population living on an university campus. Telephone interviews were realized using the Sleep-EVAL system to assess sleeping habits, general health, organic, sleep and mental disorders.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One-month prevalence of depressed mood was similar between community and campus student groups (21.7% and 23.4%), and less common than for working (23.6%) and non-working (28.2%) young adults in the community. One-month MDD was found in 12.0% of non-working young people, compared with 6.6% of young workers, 3.2% of on-campus students and 4.1% of students in the general population (p < 0.01). Correlates for depressive mood and MDD such as female gender, dissatisfaction with social life, obesity, living with pain and other factors were identified across groups. A minority of on-campus (10.8%) and general population students (10.3%) had sought mental health services in the prior year. Individuals with MDD had higher rates of care-seeking than other young people (p < 0.001), high rates of psychotropic medication use (p < 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Being a student appears to have a protective effect with respect to having depressive symptoms or MDD and seeking needed mental health care. Stress and social isolation were important determinants for depression among young adults.
authors.affiliation: Stanford Sleep Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Stanford University, 3430 W. Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, Stanford, CA 94303, USA. Electronic address: mohayon@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Maurice M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Ohayon
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Laura Weiss
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D015995:Prevalence; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Care-seeking; Depression; Epidemiology; Occupation; Stress