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Correlates of Anxiety and Depression among Young Men Living in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

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Abstract

Depression and anxiety are important sources of morbidity globally, but we have little knowledge of risk groups and risk factors for both classes of disorders in Tanzania and other low-resource settings. We aimed to identify sociodemographic markers and risk and protective factors associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression among 1249 young men belonging to social groups known as “camps” in Dar es Salaam. Anxiety and depression were measured using the HSCL-25. Twenty-two percent of men reported clinically significant symptoms of depression and 20% reported clinically significant symptoms of anxiety. Men living apart from family reported greater symptoms of anxiety and depression than men living with family, and employment was associated with a greater likelihood of clinically significant symptoms of both anxiety and depression. Childhood experience of violence was strongly associated with both anxiety and depression. Social support was associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression, and with a lower likelihood of clinically significant levels of anxiety and depression. Youth not living with family and the working poor may be important populations for future investigation. Interventions targeting survivors of childhood violence and social support-based interventions should be tested to address the burden of anxiety and depression in this setting.

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Funding

This research was made possible by funding from The National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH098690).

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Correspondence to Lauren M. Hill.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Review

The study was approved by the ethical review committees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Individual written informed consent was obtained from all study participants.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Hill, L.M., Kajula, L.J. & Maman, S. Correlates of Anxiety and Depression among Young Men Living in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Int J Ment Health Addiction 18, 917–931 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-9993-6

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