Background: Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious mental illness that affects negatively how you feel the way you think and how you behave. Depression is ranked as 4th leading cause disability worldwide by WHO. Evidence shows that there are greater rates of depression among medical students than in general population. Depression has led to poor performance in class and increase in suicidal ideation among medical students.
Methodology: A community based cross sectional study was conducted among students at Sengerema Health Institute where by a total 352 students were enrolled in the study. The sample size was collected by non-probability sampling where by PHQ-9 was used to analyze the statistical association and the p value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Joint CUHAS/BMC Research and ethics committee.
Results: Among the 352 students who were involved in the study majority were males 53.1% while female were 46.9% and most of them aged between 18-24 years. Among the three course that were involved in this study majority were taking diploma in clinical officer and most of them were third year. The prevalence of depression among collage medical students at Sengerema was found to be 49.4%
Conclusion: Prevalence of depression was found to be high in students at Sengerema Health Institute and this could affect their academic performance and also their social life. The collage administration should increase extra curriculum activities to students also students should be given mentors who would be advising students when they face academic or social challenges.