European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: Psychiatric morbidity is on the rise among patients having STI’s in India.  Little data is available on the prevalence of depression in patients having STI’s.  Aims And Objectives : The present study aims to assess the prevalence of depression in patients with Sexually transmitted infections. Materials And Methods : This cross sectional study was conducted in the STI clinic of Mahavir Institute of Medical Sciences & General Hospital. A total of 100 participants of both the genders who met inclusion and exclusion criteria were considered for the study after  taking informed consent. Participants were those patients who were diagnosed with STI. The study was conducted from August 2019 to March 2020.The study was carried out in single phase, screening for depression was done for all the patients using the " HAMILTON DEPRESSION RATING [HAM-D] SCALE, which is designed to grade the severity of depression.SPSS-23 was used for statistical analysis of data. Results : Majority of individuals who had STI’s were in the age group of 20-30 years followed by age group of 31- 40 years. Since patients of 20 – 30yrs had risk taking behavior & also were sexually active, they are more prone to develop STI’S. Overall prevalence of depression was found be 35% out of which 24 % had mild depression & 10% had moderate depression. Depression was more prevalent in age group of 20-30 years, 35.3% of this age group were found to have Mild depression. Among the age group of 31-40 years, 18.7% had mild depression and 6.3% had Moderate depression. When compared with the distribution of sex and gender, 42.2% females had depression among which 31.1% suffered with Mild depression and 8.9%, with Moderate depression. Prevalence of depression was high in females when compared with males (29.1%). The prevalence of depression was high among unmarried patients (77.45) when compared to married individuals (16%). It was found that less number of educated people suffered from depression (23.9%) when compared with illiterates (57.6%). Depression was more prominent among HIV +ve patients (76.5%), majority of them had Mild depression & few had Moderate and Severe depression. Subjects who had multiple sexual partners (72.2%)  were found to have depression when compared to other individuals. Conclusion : This study suggested that there is strong need to screen the patients visiting the STI clinic for depression. The sexual behavior in the study population put them at a high risk of developing STI’S.