Associations Between Psychological Stress and the Risk of First Onset of Major Depression Disorder: Results from a Longitudinal Study in 6,985 Chinese First-Year Students

Fengting Wang; Limin Rong; Linlin Luo; Fuqin Mu; Liju Qian; Yandan Qian; Xinyao Zhang; Yuying Lang; Weijia Wang; Yan Liu; Ying Zhang; Jianli Wang

doi:10.2147/PRBM.S482482

Associations Between Psychological Stress and the Risk of First Onset of Major Depression Disorder: Results from a Longitudinal Study in 6,985 Chinese First-Year Students

Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2024 Oct 16:17:3585-3593. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S482482. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Fengting Wang^#¹, Limin Rong^#¹, Linlin Luo², Fuqin Mu¹, Liju Qian³, Yandan Qian⁴, Xinyao Zhang¹, Yuying Lang¹, Weijia Wang¹, Yan Liu^{5

6}, Ying Zhang⁷, Jianli Wang^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ School of Mental Health, Jining Medical University, Jining, Shandong, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Hematology, Tai'an Central Hospital, Tai'an, Shandong, People's Republic of China.
³ Shandong Daizhuang Hospital, Jining, Shandong, People's Republic of China.
⁴ The Third People's Hospital of Jiashan County, Jiashan, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China.
⁵ School of Public Health, Jining Medical University, Jining, Shandong, People's Republic of China.
⁶ Center of Evidence-Based Medicine, Jining Medical University, Jining, Shandong, People's Republic of China.
⁷ School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁸ Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Youth and young adults have a high prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD). Limited longitudinal research has explored the relationship between different dimensions of psychological stress and MDD. This study aimed to estimate the effect of psychological stress on the risk of first onset MDD in a sample of Chinese freshmen.

Methods: Using a longitudinal design, 8079 Chinese first-year students were recruited at baseline, and 6985 were followed up one year later. The Psychological Stress Scale for College Students was utilized to evaluate the levels of psychological stress. MDD was evaluated using the Chinese version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI-3.0). Logistic regression modeling was utilized to estimate the associations between dimensions of psychological stress and the risk of MDD.

Results: Two dimensions of psychological stress, namely learning stress (OR=1.05, 95% CI:1.01-1.09, P=0.017) and economic stress (OR=1.11, 95% CI:1.04-1.19, P=0.001), were significantly associated with the risk of MDD. Other dimensions of psychological stress (specify family stress, interpersonal stress, intimate relationship stress, employment stress and appearance stress) were not associated with MDD.

Conclusion: Psychological stress, especially learning and economic stresses, could increase the risk of MDD in university students. These factors should be incorporated into mental health prevention and intervention programs at universities to reduce the risks of MDD.

Keywords: freshmen; longitudinal study; major depressive disorder; psychological stress.

Grants and funding

Funding for this study was provided by the Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (Grant number: tsqn201909145), High-level Scientific Research Project Cultivation Program of Jining Medical University (JYGC2022KJ008), the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 81901391), Key Research Planning Project of Jining City (2023YXNS213, 2023YXNS102), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant number: ZR2019MH095), the Research Fund for Lin He’s Academician Workstation of New Medicine and Clinical Translation in Jining Medical University (Grant number: JYHL2021MS04), and the College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training Plan Program (cx2022168).