Prevalence and risk factors for anxiety, stress and depression among higher education students in Portugal and Brazil

Objective

Determine the prevalence and risk factors for anxiety, stress and depression among higher education students in a sample from Portugal and Brazil.

Methods

Students from Portugal (n = 709) and Brazil (n = 487) answered the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and demographic and academic characteristics questions.

Results

Rates of anxiety, stress, and depression were 55.3 %, 55.9 % and 56.3 % for Portuguese students and 71.5 %, 75.6 % and 68.2 % for Brazilian students, respectively. In the total sample, being Brazilian was found to predict anxiety, stress and depression. In both samples, being female was found to predict anxiety and stress. Being displaced was also found to affect mental health: anxiety for the Portuguese sample; stress for the Brazilian sample. Furthermore, in the Portuguese sample, fields of study were found to affect mental health: Education and Human Motricity protected from anxiety, stress and depression; Psychology protected from anxiety and depression; Medicine protected from depression. Non-working status was also found to predict depression in this sample.

Limitations

The cross-sectional design prevents the establishment of causal relationships; self-report measures may be susceptible to response bias; the recruitment of participants may be susceptible to selection bias; cultural factors and institutional differences between these countries may affect mental health.

Conclusions

Country, gender, displacement, field of study, and working status were found to affect higher education students’ mental health. From a clinical perspective, specific programs addressing anxiety, stress and depression in university students should be tested, as these disorders have a noteworthy prevalence in this population.