Depression hard to manage for students

Management students learn how to manage the affairs of corporate giants and business houses, but it seems that they are failing to manage depression.

A recent survey of 10 education institutes and corporate groups in Ahmedabad, covering around 4,000 people, by two students has found that management students are most vulnerable to severe depression.


“Around 47% management students in city colleges were found to be struggling with depression. Engineering students came next, with 24.4% of them suffering depression. The factors behind this are mainly their future — career, and personal issues which mainly involve their love life, apart from the pressures of studies,” says the study by two third-year BBA students, Siddharth Kambalia and Meet Kapadia.

Kambalia said they formed questions according to the criteria set by the World Health Organisation. For example, they asked subjects if they were facing a problem in their career, family, love life or health issues and if they had sought help from counsellors to tackle this mental condition. The questionnaires, which included details like gender, age, education and profession, suggest that people aged between 18 and 22 are worst affected by depression.

A gender-wise analysis indicated that men were more vulnerable to the disorder with around 58% of males and 42% of females suffering from depression.

“We took responses from people aged between 15 and 60 and were shocked to find that young people are the worst affected. Relationship issues, problems finding love and failure, were the main factors behind depression in the young age group. Many people in their 50s said that their failures in relationships from their college days still haunt them and they are depressed,” said Kambalia.

Kambalia and Kapadia conducted this study to make a tool-based game to help young people emerge from depression.

65% of respondents said they faced critical problems in their career, friendships or academics and went into depression because of that

54% of respondents faced problems in their relationships and 53% had issues in family life

58% found solutions themselves and 40% people sought help from friends and family

Only 10.5% sought counselling or consulted a psychiatrist

78% shared their issues with counsellors or psychiatrists openly while 22% people think they could communicate better