Prevalence And Risk Factors Of Depression In College Students in Northeast China During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-sectional Study

Background The Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic spread rapidly worldwide, posing a serious health challenge to the global public. However, few studies exist on the association between health risk behaviors and depression among Chinese college students during the stage. Therefore, this study aimed to explore associated factors including health risk behaviors and life satisfaction among Chinese college students with depression. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in northeast China from April to June 2020 on purposively sampled from two colleges. Data were collected through the Adolescent Students' Life Satisfaction Scale, Health Risk Behavior Scale, Self-rating Anxiety Scale, and Self-rating Depression Scale. Binary logistic regression was conducted to analyze the risk factors of depression. Results The prevalence of depressive state of college students was 32.1%. Students with health-compromising behavior (OR = 1.128, p  < 0.001) were positively correlated with depression. Furthermore, satisfaction with friendships (OR = 0.941, p  < 0.001), freedom (OR = 0.955, p  = 0.004), school (OR = 0.966, p  = 0.010), and the environment (OR = 0.933, p  < 0.001) were protective factors for students’ depression. Conclusions To reduce this depression, schools should increase publicity and education to promote a regular diet among college students, channel adolescents' destructive emotions to prevent them from self-injury and self-harm, enrich their after-school life to strengthen their interpersonal communication, and enhance friendship- building among them.