Aims: To assess the prevalence of depression among the first-year university students.
Methods: 237 freshmen contributed anonymously to the study on a voluntary basis and an informed consent was obtained. Beck Depression Inventory-II Turkish (BDI-II-T) was applied. SPSS 11.0 statistical program was used.
Results: Overall depression prevalence was 8.4%. 54.9% of subjects were females. 3 factors were found: factor 1 (depressive) with 11.2%, factor 2 (cognitive) with 9.7% and factor 3 (somatic-affective) with 8.8% of total variance. Mild depression was found in 5.9%, moderate in 1.7% and severe depression in o.8% of subjects.
Conclusion: BDI-II-T was found to be useful for the detection of depression among freshmen in terms of academic failure and future health