An investigation of the prevalence of depressive symptoms in newly recruited young adult men in Turkey.

The aim of this study is to determine prevalence of depressive symptoms among newly recruited young adult men in the Turkish army. This cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms in this population and to identify associations between depression and socio-demographic characteristics. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), adapted for Turkey, was used to assess self-reported experiences of depression among 2910 young adult males who had been recently recruited, according to Turkish law, into the army. It was found that 29.9% (n=835) of the recruits had depressive symptoms. The relationship between the level of depressive symptoms of the recruits and the recruits' settlement type, educational level, income status, smoking and drinking status and level of interest in sports was statistically evaluated. Recruits who smoked or drank, who had low incomes and who were uninterested in sports had higher BDI scores. The prevalence of depressive symptoms (29.9%) found in this study is higher than rates found in studies of non-military populations in Turkey. The higher rate of depression may reflect problems in adapting to an environment that was significantly different from their previous lives in terms of environmental factors and life style, and that had strict disciplinary rules and a heavy physical workload.

Evaluation of the dental health of the young adult male population in Turkey.

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of dental caries in military recruits and to assess the relation of dental caries with socioeconomic and demographic factors, and sugar consumption behavior, and to generalize the findings for the young adult male population to draw a picture of dental health status of this population segment in Turkey. In this cross-sectional study conducted between August and October 2000 in a military basic training center in Turkey, 2,766 male recruits of the age of 20 were examined by dental specialists to determine their mean number of decayed, missing, or filled teeth (DMFT) scores and were administered a questionnaire for capturing their demographic characteristics and sugar consumption behavior. The mean DMFT score for the 20-year-old male population in Turkey was found to be 5.97. DMFT scores were weakly correlated with income level and urbanization. Sugar consumption was strongly correlated with DMFT scores. The mean number of teeth with fillings component was strongly correlated with income level, moderately with the subject's education, and weakly with the mother's education, father's education, and urbanization. DMFT scores for the young adult male population in Turkey were strongly associated with sugar consumption behavior, whereas they were weakly or not at all associated with demographic factors such as education level, income level, and urbanization.