Investigating the prevalence of depression in Tabriz marginal population

Abstract

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the general population worldwide, and its prevalence increases every year. Depression affects all age groups, genders, all races and ethnicities. This disease is multifactorial and is usually attributed to genetic reasons, environmental, social and psychological stressors. In order to reduce mental health disorders around the world, it is necessary to evaluate the prevalence of depression in different societies and examine the difference in prevalence based on geographic regions and income levels. Uuntil now no epidemiological study has been conducted to investigate the prevalence of depression and its determinants in Iran. Therefore the present study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of depression and its risk factors in the marginal population of Tabriz in 2024. Methods: The current study was a cross-sectional descriptive analytical research that was conducted in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2024. In order to conduct this study, the data of the health complexes evaluation project which is carried out in East Azerbaijan province was used. The research population included citizens over 15 years of age who lived in Tabriz at the time of the study. In this study, three demographic information questionnaires, socio-economic status questionnaire and patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) were used to collect data. In this way, trained interviewers visited the houses and randomly selected one of the eligible people and collected data through face-to-face interviews. Finally, the data was entered into the SPSS version 26 software. Frequency and percentage was used to describe the qualitative data and Chi-Square statistical test was used to analyze the data. Results: In total, 296 residents of Tabriz marginal population participated in this study. The mean (SD) of their age was 41.26 (16.08) years and most of the participants in this study were women (65.5%). The socio-economic status of about half of the participants was average (52.2%). The prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) in the marginal population of Tabriz was 23.3% based on the PHQ-9 questionnaire. The prevalence of MDD in the marginalized population was higher than the non-marginalized population (23.3% in the marginalized and 16.4% in the non-marginalized) and based on the results of the chi-square test, this difference was statistically significant (p = 0.012). The prevalence of MDD in the middle-aged age group was higher than that of the young and elderly (33.9% in the middle-aged, 18.8% in the young and 11.5% in the elderly), which according to the results of the chi-square test, the difference between the prevalence of MDD in different age groups was statistically significant (p=0.005). According to the results of the chi-square test, the relationship between the prevalence of MDD and the variables of gender, marital status, education, job, and socioeconomic status was not statistically significant.