Description
Abstract
Purpose: Academic demands and performance in engineering education coupled with placement uncertainties, peer pressure, social pressure and parental expectattions to perform and to be able to repay the educational loans can cause depressive symptoms. Alcohol use is common among university students and in this study, we have attempted to analyse alcohol use, life stress and academic performance as the antecedents of depression in engineering students.
Design Methodology/Approach: Data was collected from twelve engineering colleges under Dr. Abdul Kalam Technical University in Lucknow, India and comprised 479 usable questionnaires for analysis. The structured questionnaire contained questions on the frequency of alcohol consumption, life stress and depression. Depression was measured by the 20-item Depression Scale of the Center for Epidemiological Survey (CES-D).
Findings: Pairwise correlations showed significant correlations between depression and alcohol use (0.489), life stress (0.347) and academic performance (0.412) respectively. Alcohol use, life stressors and academic performance returned significant regression coefficients of 0.217, 0.203 and 0.092 respectively. The null hypothesis of equality of mean scores on the three levels of predictor variables was rejected. Tukey post hoc test showed that pairwise the three mean scores on alcohol use were significantly different making it the most important determinant of depression among engineering students.
Social Implications: Youth facing stress and depression is a serious issue and knowledge of antecedents might help in combating the same at the university level.
Originality/Value: This study contributes to existing literature by examining the antecedents of depression among engineering students.
Keywords: Alcoholism, depression, stress, peer pressure, parental pressure
