BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Change of life, from family life to student life, is stressful for students despite facing students with new opportunities. Specially, students living in dorms experience the feeling of severe homesickness and desolation. This experience affects academic achievement, narcotics addiction, suicide and social and academic performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the relationship between homesickness and depression among students, living in dorms.
METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 300 dormitory students of schools of Nursing-Midwifery and Paramedicine in eastern Guilan Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Utrecht Homesickness Scale (UHS) in 2016. Data were analyzed using independent such as independent t, ANOVA, Spearman.
FINDINGS: Totally, 131 students of whom 95(72.5%) were female and 36 cases (27.5%) were male. There was a significant relationship between homesickness and depression (p=0.045) in 24-26-year-old students. Reverse and significant relationship was found between homesickness and depression for students with grade point average (GPA) less than 15.5 (p=0.027). No significant relationship was observed between homesickness and depression with other cases such as marital status and distance of residence and education.
CONCLUSION: Because of high levels of homesickness and depression among students and the importance of mental health of this group as future medical staff, some social support methods can have a significant impact on this issue.