Abstract

The authors studied depression in 5,869 college students (male: 3,893, female: 1,976) using Zung's Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). The results are as follows: 1) Female college students showed significantly higher total depression scores than male college students (p<0.001). 2) The items of confusion, indecisiveness, and psychomotor retardation were scored higher in both groups and the items of suicidal rumination, psychomotor agitation, constipation and tachycardia were scored lower in both groups. 3) 18.2% of male college students showed rather serious depression level of score 50 or higher, while 33.1% of female college students showed the same scores. 4) The psychosocial factors relating to pessimistic views to past, present & future self-images showed significantly high depression scores. 5) The depression items of fatigue, anxiousness, tachycardia, apprehension, fear, and body aches & pain were correlated significantly over 0.40 of correlation coefficient.