Systematic Review of Depression Levels in University Students

This systematic review aims to describe the results of studies on levels of depression carried out with the BDI in university populations. For this, a search for empirical articles was carried out in the SCOPUS database. 294 abstracts were analyzed in the first review phase, and 19 empirical articles were finally selected and categorized in the second phase. The results demonstrated a lack of specificity of the studies when detailing the levels of depression in their samples, associating the BDI scores obtained with other psychological variables in most cases. Gender differences were evidenced in BDI scores, with women showing higher levels of depression than men. Regarding the general scores, high levels of depression were not found on average in the samples of university students. The implication of the results in relation to the existing literature is discussed.