Comorbilidad de la depresión en usuarios de una clínica-escuela de México

Abstract

At the Clinic School of the FES Iztacala, community services are provided to users, mainly in the areas of Medicine and Psychology (Clinical and Special Education).In these last teaching-service semesters, a number of cases have presented depression symptoms, no matter what the request of service is. However, no formal records exist in order to know the real prevalence of depression among clients. Thus, the major goal of this study consisted in state this prevalence, resulting in proving its morbidity associated to other emotional or physical conditions. The instrument used in this study was the Beck Depression Inventory, in its Mexican version (Jurado, Villegas, Méndez, Rodríguez, Loperena y Varela, 1988), which was applied to some of the clients of this Clinic, belonging to the mentioned areas. This study implied the co morbidity of depression, since prevalence showed its presence in most of the cases. Thus, assignment for treatment through a turn list is not exactly the best way to provide the professional treatment in terms of time. On the other hand, those clients who are already receiving care in the areas of Medicine and Special Education, might not being supported with adequate treatment for depression. If this is so, and according to Beck (1972), the information process, as long as a sort of distensions, may interfere in reaching actual treatment goals. Epidemiology was considered as a useful tool to permit having acknowledgement of the distribution of depression in its natural environment. The Beck’s scale states for levels of depression: normal, mild, moderate and severe. In the sample for this study (N=131), most of participants reported a moderate level (42.7%), followed by the severe level (24.4%); findings showed that 17.6% presented normal depression, and only 15.3% a mild one. Hence, almost half of population in this research is in high risk to develop a severe level. If time passes, and they don’t receive the adequate treatment, co morbidity of depression might affect important emotional areas, causing a terrible distress and delay in recovery, no matter what the main problem has been treated. This co morbidity must be taken in account for Medical and Psychological services.