Resumen

LOPEZ CARDENAS, Limber et al. Trastorno depresivo: evaluación de la prevalencia en adolescentes y jovenes de la facultad de derecho de la UMSS. Ciencia y Medicina [online]. 2004, vol.5, pp. 36-38. ISSN 1816-2908.

The adolescence and the youth are stages of the development where deep physical, psychological and social changes happen. According to the World Health Organization, which consider that the world popula-tion's 25% is adolescent and young; in Bolivia the population between the 17 and 25 years represents eco-nomically active population's 18.54%. We carried out a research in 750 youths and adolescent, from law school in San Simón University. The depression frequency in the study was of 40.5% (304), for the women 41.58% (95) for the males 39.96% (209). The depression frequency according to ages showed the highest values in the group of 19 and 21 years with 24,4% and 25% respectively, followed by the groups of 20, 22 and 23 years with a frequency of 15.8%; 15.5%; 12.8% respectively. About the depression intensity : We found very serious depression in 3.5% from the whole, serious with 3.8%, the both of this groups show that around 7% of the students are potential suicides, Also we found moderate and mild depression respectively with 14.4% and 16.4%. Since in Bolivia we have few epidemic data of depression, this data adquieres a lot of importance for the taking of decisions that commit the handling of the prohlems in this group, for this reason we should know more about this pathology in Cochabamba.

Palabras llave : Depression; Frequency; Law school students; Bolivia.