Manifestation of Depression Among Undergraduate Students: Implications for Counselling

Abstract

Depression is a common mental disorder that presents with depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite and poor concentration. This study therefore investigates the manifestations of depression among undergraduates of universities in Kwara State. It also examined the influence of variables of religious affiliation and level of study on undergraduates’ responses. Descriptive survey design was adopted for this study and multi-stage sampling procedure which comprises purposive, proportional, stratified and simple random sampling techniques were adopted to draw a total sample of 600 undergraduates from two universities in Kwara State. “Manifestations of Depression Questionnaire (MDQ)” was used to collect relevant data. The instrument was subjected to test re-test reliability co-efficient which yielded the score of 0.78 and the hypotheses were analysed using t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 significance level. Frequency counts and percentages were used to present the demographic data. The findings of the study identified poor school academic performance, avoidance of responsibility and difficulty in day to day tasks, health problems and loss of self-confidence as major manifestations of depression among undergraduates of universities in Kwara State, Nigeria. The hypotheses tested revealed no significant difference in the manifestations of depression among undergraduates of Universities in Kwara State based on religious affiliation and level of study. In line with the findings of this study, it was recommended among others that members in peer groups should be encouraged to assist one another and encourage prompt reportage of depression.