Metrics details. Depression among undergraduate health science students is increasingly recognized as a significant public health issue globally. These students face immense academic pressure, often leading to stress and mental exhaustion, particularly for students studying in a humanitarian crisis situation.
However, there is a scarcity of information in this regard in higher education institutions in Somalia. Hence, this investigation was conducted to assess the prevalence of depression and its correlates health science students in Somalia.
A cross-sectional study was conducted on health science students from some universities in Mogadishu, Somalia. The data was collected from students studying medicine, nursing and midwifery, laboratory science and public health at SIMAD university, Banadir university, Mogadishu university and Jamhuriya university, all located in Mogadishu. Simple random sampling based on class list was used to select the participants and a web-based self-administered Patient Health Questionnaire PHQ-9 was used to screen for depression.
The collected data were cleaned and checked for completeness before exporting into SPSS version 27 Statistical software for analysis, where descriptive statistics as well as logistic regression analysis was done to determine the independent predictors of the outcome variable. The prevalence of depression among the students was A total of Students studying nursing and midwifery had the highest case of depression with The prevalence of depression among health science students in Mogadishu was high and positively associated with gender, having trouble with authorities, emotional problems, as well as experience of sexual abuse or violence.
Peer Review reports. Depression is a serious mental health disorder attributed to a combination of psychosocial, hereditary and environmental factors [ 37 ]. The condition is characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a lack of interest or pleasure in routine activities [ 36 ].
