Depressive Symptomatology of University Students Via a Web Application

Abstract

Depression is a serious mental health disorder that affects approximately 2–5% of school-age children and adults. In addition to the emotional suffering, depression often disrupts cognitive functions and leads to the deterioration of academic performance. In depressed adults, short and long-term memory as well as attention are the most affected cognitive functions. There are only a limited number of studies on cognitive functions in university students with depressive symptomatology. However, deficits in short-term memory and meta-memory have been reported. Impaired ability to concentrate on task performance is one of the major problems in child and adult patients with depression. A number of studies suggest that university students neglect or even give up on theirs studies after their first year as students. Furthermore, a large number of students finish their studies taking more time than they normally would. A line of researchers recommends assessing their psychological characteristics. Several research protocols have been implemented in order to assess psychological disorders among students, taking into account gender differences, different levels of education, different scientific fields and age. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.