Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec 25;8(1):36-65.
doi: 10.3934/publichealth.2021004. eCollection 2021.

Risk factors associated with stress, anxiety, and depression among university undergraduate students

Mohammad Mofatteh  1   2   3
Affiliations

Risk factors associated with stress, anxiety, and depression among university undergraduate students

Mohammad Mofatteh. AIMS Public Health. .

Abstract

It is well-known that prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression is high among university undergraduate students in developed and developing countries. Students entering university are from different socioeconomic background, which can bring a variety of mental health risk factors. The aim of this review was to investigate present literatures to identify risk factors associated with stress, anxiety, and depression among university undergraduate students in developed and developing countries. I identified and critically evaluated forty-one articles about risk factors associated with mental health of undergraduate university students in developed and developing countries from 2000 to 2020 according to the inclusion criteria. Selected papers were analyzed for risk factor themes. Six different themes of risk factors were identified: psychological, academic, biological, lifestyle, social and financial. Different risk factor groups can have different degree of impact on students' stress, anxiety, and depression. Each theme of risk factor was further divided into multiple subthemes. Risk factors associated with stress, depression and anxiety among university students should be identified early in university to provide them with additional mental health support and prevent exacerbation of risk factors.

Keywords: anxiety; depression; mental health; public health; stress; students; undergraduate; university.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: All authors declare no conflicts of interest in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. A flowchart demonstrating the procedure for identification, screening, exclusion and inclusion of the articles in this review.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. A quantitative summary of distribution of included papers. Analysis of search results were conducted to demonstrate (A) country of publication, (B) publication type, and (C) publication year.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. A concept map demonstrating a complex relationship between risk factors associated with SAD in university undergraduate students studying in developed and developing countries. Different themes are represented by different shapes: circle, biological; oval, academic; triangle, psychological, rectangle, social; pentagon, lifestyle; hexagon, financial. The size of shapes is arbitrary. Arrowheads indicate associations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Pedrelli P, Nyer M, Yeung A, et al. College Students: Mental Health Problems and Treatment Considerations. Acad Psychiatry. 2015;39:503–511. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mayer FB, Santos IS, Silveira PSP, et al. Factors associated to depression and anxiety in medical students: a multicenter study. BMC Med Educ. 2016;16:282–282. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ibrahim AK, Kelly SJ, Adams CE, et al. A systematic review of studies of depression prevalence in university students. J Psychiatr Res. 2013;47:391–400. - PubMed
    1. Mkize LP, Nonkelela NF, Mkize DL. Prevalence of depression in a university population. Curationis. 1998;21:32–37. - PubMed
    1. Ivandic I, Kamenov K, Rojas D, et al. Determinants of Work Performance in Workers with Depression and Anxiety: A Cross-Sectional Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2017;14:466. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources