Identifying risk factors for depression and positive/negative mood changes in college students using machine learning

TL;DR

This study uses machine learning to predict changes in college students' depression levels, finding that baseline depression and parental emotional expression are key factors.

Contribution

The study introduces a machine learning approach to predict depression changes in college students and identifies key predictors like parental emotional expression.

Findings

Support vector machines (SVM) achieved 89.4% accuracy for predicting negative depression changes and 91.9% for positive changes.

Baseline depression levels and parental emotional expression were identified as significant predictors of depression changes.

Machine learning models offer a new method for predicting and understanding depression dynamics in college students.

Abstract

In this study, machine learning was used to assess the prediction of the magnitude of depression changes in college students based on various psychological variable information.

A group of college students from a certain school completed two assessments in October 2021 and March 2022, respectively. We collected baseline levels of depression, demographic variables, parenting styles, college students’ mental health information, personality information, coping styles, SCL-90, and social support information. We applied logistic regression, random forest, support vector machine, and k-nearest neighbor machine learning methods to predict the magnitude of depression changes in college students. We selected the best-performing model and outputted the importance of features collected at different time points.

Whether it is predicting the magnitude of positive changes or negative changes in depression, support vector machines (SVM) had the best prediction performance (with an accuracy of 89.4% for predicting negative changes in depression and an accuracy of 91.9% for predicting positive changes in depression). The baseline level of depression, father’s emotional expression, and mother’s emotional expression were all important predictors for predicting the negative and positive changes in depression among college students.

Machine learning models can predict the extent of depression changes in college students. The baseline level of depression, as well as the emotional state of both fathers and mothers, play a significant role in predicting the negative and positive changes associated with depression in college students. This provides new insights and methods for future psychological health research and practice.

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