Azupogo Fusta, Saeed Nawaf, Wemakor Anthony, Addae Hammond Yaw, Boah Michael, Brouwer Inge D
Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana.
Department of Nutritional Sciences, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana.
BMJ Nutr Prev Health. 2023 Jan 2;6(1):56-64. doi: 10.1136/bmjnph-2022-000523. eCollection 2023.
Household food insecurity is positively associated with depression; however, the association among adolescents is not well known. We examined the association between household food insecurity and depression among adolescent girls in Northern Ghana.
We analysed data from the Ten2Twenty-Ghana randomised controlled trial end-line for adolescent girls aged 10-17 years (n=582). The girls were chosen at random from 19 primary schools in the Mion District of Ghana's northern region. The children's depression inventory and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale were used in face-to-face interviews to assess depression and household food insecurity. Hierarchical survey binary logistic regression and linear mixed models were used to examine the association between household food insecurity and depressive symptoms. We took into account a number of potential confounders in the analysis, such as life satisfaction, self-efficacy, self-esteem, health complaints, child's age, menarche status, pubertal development, anaemia, stunting, frequency of consuming fruits and vegetables, frequency of consuming animal-sourced foods, maternal age, household wealth index and size, and the intervention group the girl was assigned to in the trial.
About 20.1% of adolescent girls were classified as likely depressed, and 70.3% of their households were food insecure, with 22.9% and 18.0% being moderately and severely food insecure, respectively. Compared with girls from food-secure households, those from moderately (adjusted OR (AOR) 2.63, 95% CI (1.35 to 5.12)) and severely (AOR 3.28, 95% CI (1.66 to 6.49)) food insecure households had about three times the odds of being classified as depressed, after controlling for potential confounders. The odds of being likely depressed were about twice for adolescent girls from food-insecure households compared with their peers from food-secure households in both the crude and final adjusted model.
The study discovered high levels of household food insecurity and depression in adolescent girls in Northern Ghana, with a dose-response association between the two.
家庭粮食不安全与抑郁症呈正相关；然而，青少年之间的这种关联尚不清楚。我们研究了加纳北部青春期女孩家庭粮食不安全与抑郁症之间的关联。
我们分析了来自“十到二十加纳”随机对照试验终期的数据，该试验针对10至17岁的青春期女孩（n = 582）。这些女孩是从加纳北部地区米昂区的19所小学中随机挑选出来的。通过面对面访谈使用儿童抑郁量表和粮食不安全体验量表来评估抑郁和家庭粮食不安全状况。采用分层调查二元逻辑回归和线性混合模型来研究家庭粮食不安全与抑郁症状之间的关联。在分析中我们考虑了一些潜在的混杂因素，如生活满意度、自我效能感、自尊、健康问题、孩子年龄、初潮状态、青春期发育、贫血、发育迟缓、食用水果和蔬菜的频率、食用动物性食物的频率、母亲年龄、家庭财富指数和规模，以及女孩在试验中被分配到的干预组。
约20.1%的青春期女孩被归类为可能患有抑郁症，其家庭中有70.3%粮食不安全，其中22.9%和18.0%分别为中度和重度粮食不安全。与粮食安全家庭的女孩相比，在控制潜在混杂因素后，中度（调整后比值比（AOR）2.63，95%置信区间（CI）（1.35至5.12））和重度（AOR 3.28，95% CI（1.66至6.49））粮食不安全家庭的女孩被归类为抑郁的几率约为三倍。在粗模型和最终调整模型中，粮食不安全家庭的青春期女孩被归类为可能抑郁的几率是粮食安全家庭同龄女孩的两倍左右。
该研究发现加纳北部青春期女孩中家庭粮食不安全和抑郁症的发生率很高，且二者之间存在剂量反应关系。
