Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety among Gezira State Internally Displaced Persons residing in Kassala City, Sudan, 2024

Background: Sudan’s last war recorded the highest wave of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the world. Gezira State had a large share of IDPs in Kassala city, Eastern Sudan. Studying IDP's health condition, especially mental status, is not less important than food and shelters. Therefore, this study aimed to estimate the prevalence of anxiety and depression among IDPs and their association with socio-demographic variables. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between June and July 2024 among Gezira State IDPs residing in Kassala, who were selected from 191 shelters using a cluster-simple random sampling technique. The prevalence of anxiety and depression was measured using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25), a validated questionnaire (translated to Arabic) at a cut-off of mean ≥1.75 to consider significant elevation. The association between demographic variables (chi-square test of independence) and the questionnaire items was identified. Variables with a P-value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant at a 95% confidence interval. Results: A total of 386 participants (101% response rate) were interviewed with trained, graduated medical students. The estimated prevalence of anxiety and depression was 239 (61.9%) and 271 (70.2%), respectively. The association between demographic variables and anxiety was found to be significant in gender, level of education, marital status, employment status, and current financial status. While depression was found significantly associated only with gender. Conclusion: This study found a high prevalence rate of anxiety and depression among IDPs in Kassala, Eastern Sudan. The socio-demographic variables found in association with high prevalence of anxiety were gender (higher in females), level of education (higher in universities level), marital status (higher in married), work status (higher in students), financial (higher in low income); while depression was found significantly associated only with female gender. Implementing any health interventions should include mental health services as priorities in IDP shelters.