Prevalence of depressive symptoms among patients attending a general outpatient clinic

Abstract

Using both the English version and an Igbo translation of Zung's Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), 132 first-time attenders to a hospital-based general outpatient clinic were screened for presence of depressive symptoms. The mean SDS index obtained for the whole sample fell within the normal range. However, a prevalence rate of 25% for depressive symptoms was obtained. 14% scored within the range for "mild depression", while 11% obtained scores within the range for "moderate depression". Only three patients were referred to the psychiatric outpatient clinic of the same hospital. The need for general physicians to be able to recognise the presence and significance of psychological symptoms in their patients is emphasized.

Depressive Symptomatology and Short-Term Stability at a Nigerian Psychiatric Care Facility

“…We think that a reasonable explanation is the significant increase in population in the country (from 68 million in 1970 to about 90 million in 1996), as well as the success of years of free education in the region, with attendant urbanization, greater social awareness of psychiatric services and improved image of the psychiatrist in the public eye [10]. This finding and those of a previous community survey [31] (which diagnosed 13.4% as depressed out of 262), as well as hospital studies [19,32], should lay to rest the issue of the rarity of severe depression in Nigeria [10]. Even then, it is still true that severe depression is not as commonly encountered in our clinics as in Caucasian cultures [29], and that schizophrenia and mania are the commoner causes of psychiatric hospitalisation in Nigeria [33].…”

“…The male to female population ratio of 1 to 2 in our cohort, is in line with the near universal observation that depression is approximately twice as high in women than in men [19,28]. The reason for this sexual difference is open to speculation.…”

“…In Nigeria, in the over two decades since Binitie's [18] seminal work on depressive symptomatology (using the Present State Examination, PSE-7), the only other specific study on this issue involved the use of a screening instrument, the Beck Depression Inventory in a general outpatient population [19]. The time, therefore, seems ripe for a revisit of the issue, from the perspective of new nosology of depression in the ICD-10.…”

Family History, Life Events and the Factorial Structure of Depression in a Nigerian Sample of Inpatients

“…Also, it is a crosssectional study and therefore does not allow conclusions about cause and effect to be drawn about the relationship of family history and subcategories of depression. However, the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the subjects were strikingly similar to those of similarly recruited subjects in Nigeria [36] and the WHO international study on depression [24]. Hence the data provide a valid basis for comparison with such studies.…”

Reliability, validity and psychometric properties of the Greek translation of the zung depression rating scale

“…Fourteen percent scored within the range for "mild depression", while 11% obtained scores within the range for "moderate depression" [30]. …”