The role of sources of social support on depression and quality of life for university students

Depression is a common health problem, ranking third after cardiac and respiratory diseases as a major cause of disability. There is evidence to suggest that university students are at higher risk of depression, despite being a socially advantaged population, but the reported rates have shown wide variability across settings. To explore the prevalence of depression in university students. PubMed, PsycINFO, BioMed Central and Medline were searched to identify studies published between 1990 and 2010 reporting on depression prevalence among university students. Searches used a combination of the terms depression, depressive symptoms, depressive disorders, prevalence, university students, college students, undergraduate students, adolescents and/or young adults. Studies were evaluated with a quality rating. Twenty-four articles were identified that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Reported prevalence rates ranged from 10% to 85% with a weighted mean prevalence of 30.6%. The results suggest that university students experience rates of depression that are substantially higher than those found in the general population. Study quality has not improved since 1990. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Theory and research on sex differences in adjustment focus largely on parental, societal, and biological influences. However, it also is important to consider how peers contribute to girls' and boys' development. This article provides a critical review of sex differences in several peer relationship processes, including behavioral and social-cognitive styles, stress and coping, and relationship provisions. The authors present a speculative peer-socialization model based on this review in which the implications of these sex differences for girls' and boys' emotional and behavioral development are considered. Central to this model is the idea that sex-linked relationship processes have costs and benefits for girls' and boys' adjustment. Finally, the authors present recent research testing certain model components and propose approaches for testing understudied aspects of the model.

This meta-analysis evaluated the relation between social support and depression in youth and compared the cumulative evidence for 2 theories that have been proposed to explain this association: the general benefits (GB; also known as main effects) and stress-buffering (SB) models. The study included 341 articles (19% unpublished) gathered through a search in PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, ERIC, and ProQuest, and a hand search of 11 relevant journals. Using a random effects model, the overall effect size based on k = 341 studies and N = 273,149 participants was r = .26 (95% CI [.24, .28]), with robust support for the GB model and support for the SB model among medically ill youth. Stress-buffering analyses suggest that different stressful contexts may not allow youth to fully draw on the benefits of social support, and we propose value in seeking to better understand both stress-buffering (effects of social support are enhanced) and reverse stress-buffering (effects of social support are dampened) processes. Key findings regarding other moderators include a different pattern of effect sizes across various sources of support. In addition, gender differences were largely absent from this study, suggesting that social support may be a more critical resource for boys than is typically acknowledged. Results also demonstrated the importance of using instruments with adequate psychometric support, with careful consideration of methodological and conceptual issues. Building upon these collective findings, we provide recommendations for theory and practice, as well as recommendations for addressing limitations in the extant literature to guide future investigations. (PsycINFO Database Record