Depression in the Iranian health employees and its correlation with self-esteem and social support

ABSTRACT

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders that is characterized by depressed mood, anhedonia, hopelessness, lack of energy and concentration. These symptoms cause impairments in social, individual and occupational functioning. Health workers are among the most vulnerable groups to depression as a result of their exposure to patients' suffering and health problems. The present study was designed to explore the level of depression and its associated psychosocial and occupational factors in health workers in Mashhad, Iran. The present study is a descriptive-analytic and cross-sectional research that has been carried out in Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran that is located in the north-east of the country with more than 3 million populations. The statistical population included the health workers in 31 heath care centers of Mashhad and hoome. The sample was 279 health workers who completed the questionnaires. The instruments of research were a demographic and personal questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, Cassidy social support scale, and Eysenk self-esteem scale. Collected data were entered to SPSS and were analyzed by appropriate descriptive and analytic statistical tests including chi-square. Results indicated that 67% of workers did not have depression and 23.9% had some degrees of depression. In this study, the rate of depression did not have a significant relation with sex and marital status of workers. There was a significant relation between levels of depression and quality of personal relationships with supervisors, colleagues and family members. Satisfaction from work environment, transportation and attitude of official workers also had a significant relation with depression. Results showed that depression has a high rate in health workers. High levels of social support and self-esteem were associated with lower degrees of depression. Therefore improving these factors could be used for decreasing depression