Title:
Depression in Tunisian University Residences and Its Links With Context, Metacognitive Beliefs and Alexithymia

Authors:
Saidi Tarek, Abdelmajid Naceur, Tunisia

Abstract:

Student life is full of transitions and challenges, it requires a combination of motivation and adaptation skills, otherwise it may lead to depression, which is the most observed psychological trouble among students in several countries. Knowing the "contagious" aspect of vulnerability to depression, one wonders how alarming the issue is in university residences. Our study aims to see how the student's interpretations of their own skills can be related to depression? Does the ability to express and understand his own emotions help to prevent depression? How might lifestyle and environment be related to depression in this context? Explicitly the objective is to explore the links between depression, metacognitive beliefs, alexithymia and student environment. We conducted a cross-sectional study on 79 students aged between 19 and 26 years from 07 university residences, depression was assessed through the Beck depression inventory, metacognitive beliefs through the metacognitions questionnaire and alexithymia through the Torrento alexithymia scale. We developed a 15-item socio-demographic questionnaire that explores the student's lifestyle and environment. As results,46.9% of students suffer from moderate to severe depression; 49.4% of them experience’s alexithymic disorders. Correlation analysis reveals that depression is significantly correlated to alexithymia and metacognitive beliefs. It is also significantly related to gender, sports and leisure activities. This study presents the (TAS-20) as a possible prognostic tool for depression in university residences. It can inspire future research related to depression in this context hoping to improve student wellness which is often reduced to summary and non-specific awareness campaigns

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.51505/ijmshr.2022.6108