Examination of Health School Students’ Depression and Self-Esteem Levels

Aim: This study was conducted to investigate the factors that affect the depression and self-esteem levels of Health School students. Material and Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted between December 2013 and January 2014. The study’s sample group contains 563 participants who volunteered to participate in the study. The participants were administered a personal information form, Beck’s Depression Scale and Coopersmith Self-Esteem Scale. Results: 84.4% of the participants were composed of girls; 68.7% is from nursing department and 31.3% is from midwifery department. The mean age of the participants is 20.11±1.86. 69.3% of the participant’s income is equal to their expenses, 8.9% work, 13.7% smokes, 96.6% of the smokers indicated that they had started smoking less than a year, 10.1% drinks alcohol and 11.0% indicated that there were depressive members in their family. The results show that 17.1% of the participants feel depressive. The median score of the Beck’s depression scale was found as 8.0 (min=0, max=49.0) while the median score of the Coopersmith self-esteem scale was 70.0 (min=22, max=97). The depression frequency is significantly higher in girls than the boys, in those whose incomes are lower than their expenses, in immigrates than non-migrators, in those who have fragmented families than nuclear or extended family, in smokers than non-smokers, in alcohol users than non-users, in nursing students than midwifery students and in those who have depressive family members than those who do not have depression in their families (p？0.05). The Self-esteem scores are significantly higher in girls than boys, in midwifery students than nursing students, in those whose income is equal to their expenses than in those whose income is lower than their expenses and in immigrates than non-migrators (p？0.05). There is a negative medium significance relationship between the scores of Beck’s depression scale and Coopersmith self-esteem scale (r=-0.424, p=0.001). Conclusion: This study found out that the depression frequency of the study group is high. Also the higher self-esteem scores are, the lower is the depression frequency