Screening for Depression Among Minority Young Males Attending a Family Planning Clinic Article Review

Introduction

In the article Screening for Depression Among Minority Young Males Attending a Family Planning Clinic, Ruth S. Buzi, Peggy B. Smith, and Maxine L. Weinman sought to determine depression among males who attended a family planning clinic and if there were variations in depression based on service requests and sociodemographic. This paper, therefore, is an evaluation of this article with the objective of determining the variables used, the analysis method used, and how these are appropriate for the type of study and the data collected. The evaluation will include a summary of the study.

Summary of the research

Background

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is one of the most common chronic conditions as, according to statistics, one in every five Americans aged 18 years and older have experienced at least one major episode of depression. This is even more pronounced among young people as the rate of mental illness is twice as much among persons aged 18-25 years old as compared to persons aged 50 years and above (Buzi et al., 2014, p.116). In addition, young males experience persistent depressive symptoms starting from adolescence into adulthood as compared to females. The cause of depression is considered to be an economic strain, racial discrimination, and interpersonal conflicts. Despite the fact that men have higher experiences of depressive episodes, they seek professional help less frequently as compared to women, as seeking mental help is considered to be a sign of weakness. This, therefore, warranted the study by Buzi and her colleagues to assess the depression among males who attended a family planning clinic and if there were variations in depression based on service requests and sociodemographic.

Method

The study utilized a cohort study design with 535 participants of both African-American (66%) and Hispanic-American (34%) descent. The participants included males who attended the clinic within specific given hours and aged 13 to 25 years. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D was used to measure depression). The CES-D has 20 questions that a participant is required to answer. A score of 16 or higher is an indication of depressive disorder. Measures for sociodemographic characteristics were age, school status, ethnicity, fatherhood, marital status, health insurance ownership, and employment status. On the other hand, measures for service requests involved 20 services the males wanted to know more about. These services include health screening, relationships, anger management, employment, eating…

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…depressive disorder or not. As a result, the researchers used categorical variables between the two groups (depressed and non-depressed). The variables used would, therefore, be either independent or dependent on the phenomenon being tested, in this case, depression. Based on this, Pearson’s Chi-Square test is the best-suited method of analysis to determine relations the various factors have on depression. According to McHugh (2013), the Chi-Square test is a statistical analysis that is used to test the relationship between categorical variables. It is a test that is used to test the independence of variables.

Did the authors use a diverse group of participants?

The purpose of the study was to assess the status of depression among young males who attended a family planning clinic and determine how depression varied with sociodemographic and service requests. Based on this purpose of study, it is obvious that the study is not limited to only two ethnicities, African Americans and Hispanics, which are the only two included in the study. America is comprised of diverse ethnicities and thus, it would be expected that more ethnicities would have been included in the study. However, on other characteristics among them, age, education status, marital status, fatherhood,…