Prevalence of depression and its associated factors among Ethiopian students: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives The objective of this study is to estimate the overall pooled prevalence of depression and its associated factors among high school, college and university students in Ethiopia. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Science Direct, African Journal Online and Google Scholar. The primary articles were searched from 2 April 2023 to 11 May 2023. Eligibility criteria Observational studies such as cross-sectional, case–control and cohort studies that reported the prevalence and associated factors of depression among students in Ethiopia were included. Both published and unpublished primary studies were included in this review. Data extraction and synthesis Two authors independently extracted all the important data using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and exported it to Stata V.14 for analysis. The statistical heterogeneity among the included articles was assessed by the I 2 statistics test. Publication bias was checked using the funnel plot and Egger’s regression test. Results A total of 17 primary studies with 8798 study participants were included in the current study to estimate the combined prevalence of depression. The pooled prevalence of depression among Ethiopian students was 35.52% with a 95% CI (30.54% to 40.51%). Subgroup analysis showed that the pooled prevalence of depression was higher in Addis Ababa, which was 40.43%, with a 95% CI (28.02% to 52.83%). Female sex, first-year educational level, family history of mental illness, alcohol drinking and parental neglect were significantly associated with depression in this study. Conclusion In this review, the overall pooled prevalence of depression among students in Ethiopia was high compared with the general population. Therefore, it is necessary to make more efforts to provide mental healthcare and psychosocial support to students to improve their mental health and decrease the overall burden of depression. PROSPERO registration number CRD42023424301.