Rural-urban appraisal of the prevalence and factors of depression status in South Africa

Abstract

Abstract Despite the increasing burden of depression problems in South Africa, there remains a dearth of nationally representative rural-urban and spatial studies of the prevalence and factors of depression among the population. The study, therefore, examines the spatial and rural-urban prevalence and factors of depression status in South Africa. Data was from the 2017 National Income Dynamics (NIDS) survey, which was conducted in 9 provinces and 52 districts of South Africa. A composite index of depression status was generated from questions of how respondents felt in the week preceding the survey. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, hotspot analysis, spatial autocorrelation, geographically weighted regression, and binary logistic regression. The results showed 82.16% and 81.34% prevalence of low depression status in urban and rural areas respectively. In addition, there existed spatial variations in the prevalence of low depression status across the 9 provinces and 52 districts with regard to rural/urban place of residence. The factors which significantly increased the odds of low depression status in both rural and urban areas, were respondents with secondary and tertiary education, respondents with incomes of more than R10,000, and the non-Blacks. Conversely, being separated/widowed/divorced, and respondents aged 65+ years significantly decreased the odds of low depression status in both rural and urban areas. This study recommends more investments in education and creation of more and better employment opportunities in other to ensure increased prevalence of low depression status in the country.