Assessment of depression and family functioning among new corps members at a National Youth Service Corps Orientation Camp in North-western Nigeria

Abstract

Background: National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is one year mandatory programme that tertiary institution graduates of ages 30 years and below in  Nigeria must undergo before they can be absorbed into labour market. The anticipation to participate in the programme as well as the participation  itself, can result into psychological problem such as depression. Psychological problems developed during this year can extend into the subsequent years  of life, impairing the quality of life lived by the affected youths and rendering them less productive.This study was conducted to screen for  depression and assess its association with family functioning among new NYSC members that attended the camp clinic during one of the orientation  programmes at NYSC camp, Dakingari, Kebbi state, North-western Nigeria.

Method: A clinic-based cross-sectional study with convenient sampling  method using self-administered questionnaires was done among 157, 2018 Batch-C, corps members at Dakingari orientation camp in Kebbi State, North- western Nigeria, over a period of three weeks. The prevalence of depression was determined using depression subset of Hospital Anxiety and Depression  scale. Level of family functioning was assessed using Family APGAR tool. Data were analyzed with SPSS-16 and Chi-square was used to  determine the degree of association between presence of depression and level of family functioning. P-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically  significant.

Results: The prevalence of depression among the respondents was 37.6%. The level of family functioning was such that 71.3% of  the respondents had highly functional family, 26.1% had moderately dysfunctional family while 2.6% had severely dysfunctional family. There was  significant association between presence of depression and having dysfunctional family (p=0.010).

Conclusion: Depression is common among new NYSC  members and doctors should routinely screen for it when attending to this group of patients. Assessment for family functioning should be part of routine  evaluation of new corps members with depression.