The Future of Education

Nowadays, the mental health of university students is a problem of vital importance, given the direct impact that aspects like depression have on their performance and quality of life. The aim of this study is to determine the influence of demographic factors on depressive symptoms in university students. The sample consists of a total of 269 university students selected on a non-probabilistic basis (by accessibility), of whom 66 are men and 203 are women. The dependent variable is depressive symptoms, which has been assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II); whereas the independent variables are demographic factors (gender, age, nationality and marital status). For the analysis, the multiple linear regression technique was applied and statistical power and effect size were calculated. The results showed that, of the four predictor variables, the only one that was statistically significant was student age. Specifically, the younger the age, the higher the depressive symptoms. This predictive model explains 4% of the variance, has a small effect size (f² = 0.11) and a statistical power of more than 80%. Therefore, it is concluded that demographic factors have little influence on depressive symptoms, which leads to the need to continue research in order to identify the importance of other socioeconomic or academic factors that may have a greater relevance.

Keywords Depression, demographic factors, higher education, multiple linear regression

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