RESEARCH ARTICLE


Prevalence of Depression Symptoms amongst Orphaned Adolescents at Secondary Schools in Townships of South Africa



Thembi V. Khoza1, *, Mathildah M. Mokgatle2
1 Department of Health Systems Management and Policy, School of Public Health, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, Ga-Rankuwa, South Africa
2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, Ga-Rankuwa, South Africa

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2021
Volume: 14
First Page: 324
Last Page: 331
Publisher ID: TOPHJ-14-324
DOI: 10.2174/1874944502114010324

Article History:

Received Date: 02/11/2020
Revision Received Date: 24/5/2021
Acceptance Date: 10/6/2021
Electronic publication date: 24/08/2021
Collection year: 2021

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Creative Commons License
© 2021 Khoza and Mokgatle

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Public Health, Department of Health Systems Management and Policy, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, Ga-Rankuwa, South Africa; Tel: +27 12 5213094;
E-mail: thembi.khoza@smu.ac.za


Abstract

Introduction:

Depression among orphans is a matter of concern due to its impairing effect on functioning and emotions. This study determined the prevalence of depression symptoms and the extent of emotional and functional problems among orphaned adolescents in secondary schools.

Methods:

A cross-sectional descriptive observational design using a Children’s Depression Inventory 2 (CDI 2) test was conducted. The CDI 2 was used to measure the prevalence of depression symptoms among 301 orphaned adolescents. The CDI 2 T-scores of more than 65 indicated the presence of depression symptoms. Among 301 participants aged between 13 and 17 years old, 176 (58.4%) were females, 61% (n = 184) were double orphans, and 39% (n = 117) were maternal orphans.

Results:

The prevalence of depression symptoms was 21%, with 63 (20.9%) having elevated emotional problems, 77 (25.5%), elevated functional problems, 9.9% (n=30) very low self-esteem and 90% (n = 271) no self-esteem problems. Elevated negative mood was 20.6% (n = 26), 14.6% (n = 44) had an elevated level of ineffectiveness and 32.5% (n = 98) had elevated interpersonal problems.

Conclusion:

The results of this study preclude any conclusions about the comparison of common characteristics between orphaned and non-orphaned adolescents. The standardised tool used narrowed the number of participants of interest due to the cut-off age.

Keywords: Depression symptom, Orphaned adolescent, Functional problems, Emotional problems, Non-orphaned adolescents, Maternal orphans.