Depression Among Adolescents in Relation to Their Academic Stress

The present study was aimed to find the relationship between depression and academic stress among adolescents. For the study, a sample of 200 adolescents (studying in XI class) was taken. Beck Depression InventoryII (Beck, Steer & Brown, 1996) and Scale of Academic Stress (Bisht, 1995) were used for data collection. For the analysis of data statistical techniques like Pearson product moment method and t-ratio were used. Results of the study showed that depression was significantly and positively correlated with academic stress and its dimensions i.e. academic frustration, academic conflict, academic pressure and academic anxiety. This positive relationship demonstrated that as the academic stress increases among adolescents, depression also increases among them. No significant gender difference was observed on depression. Boys and girls significantly differed only on academic frustration dimension except all other dimensions and total academic stress. It also demonstrated that girls exhibited higher level of academic frustration then boys. INTRODUCTION Depression is a condition in which one feels blue or sad. But these feelings are usually for a short period of time. Depression interferes with daily life activities of an individual. It is a common but serious illness (National Institute of Mental Health, 2011). It is a major cause of disability across the regions and it causes fatigue, suicide, decreased ability to do work and attend school (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2013). Depression disrupts a person’s thinking processes, emotional reactions and day-by-day behaviours (Williams, 1984; Farby, 1980). There are many factors that contribute to depression such as loneliness, lack of social support from family, peers, neighbours, financial strain, stress due to studies etc. Academic stress is anything that imposes an extra demand on a person’s ability to cope, often with something that is new and different in academics (Firman, 1992). It is a type of stress that arises due to academic factors such as heavy school schedule, unrealistic expectation and demands of parents and teachers, low academic performance, poor study habits and not having enough time to deal with school’s multiple priorities (Banerjee, 2011). Experience of school related stress such as poor academic performance, negative feedback from parents and teachers about school work; daily hassles in the school environment, stressful life events and negative affect states during school work were all leads to increase in depression (Liu & Lu, 2012; Gray-Stanley et al., 2010; Rao, 2008; Hamad, Fernald, Karlan & Zinman, 2008). Nash (1994) showed no relationship between stress and depression, but many of the studies showed positive relationship between academic stress and depression (Moreira & Furegato, 2013; Skipworth, 2011; Antonio et al., 2010; Bhasin, Sharma & Saini, 2010). The researchers showed varied results at times supporting each other but sometimes contradicting each other. Hence, the present study was attempted to fill these research gaps. OBJECTIVES For the present study following objectives were framed: 1. To study the relationship of depression with academic stress among adolescents. 2. To study the gender differences on the variables of depression and academic stress. HYPOTHESES On the behalf of above stated objectives following hypotheses were formulated: 1. There is no significant relationship between depression and academic stress among adolescents. 2. There are no significant gender differences on the variables of depression and academic stress. DELIMITATIONS The study was delimited to the following: 1. The study was delimited to Government Model Senior Secondary Schools (co-educated) of Chandigarh only. 2. The study was delimited to XI class students only. 3. The study was further delimited to the variables of depression and academic stress. METHODOLOGY Design of the Study Descriptive survey method was used to find out the relationship of depression with academic stress in a sample of adolescents. Sample For the present study, a sample of 200 adolescents (100 boys and 100 girls) was selected from Government Model Senior Secondary Schools of Chandigarh by employing stratified random sampling. There was no clinical history of adolescents. Tools 1. Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II): The Beck Depression Inventory-II (Beck, Steer & Brown, 1996) was used to measure depression among adolescents aged 13 year or older. It has 21 items. The test-retest reliability for BDI-II was 0.93 (p<0.001). 2. Scale of Academic Stress (SAS): Scale of academic stress (Bisht, 1995) was used to measure academic stress among adolescents. It contains a total of 80 items. It has four dimensions namely Academic Frustration, Academic Conflict, Academic Pressure and Academic Anxiety. The scale consisted of item and content validity. The dependability, stability and internal consistency of scale were found to be 0.87, 0.82 and 0.88 respectively. Procedure For data collection a prior permission was taken from school