Depression and Racial/Ethnic Variations within a Diverse Nontraditional College Sample

The study's objective was to ascertain whether rates of depression were significantly higher for Dominican, Puerto Rican, South and Central American and Jamaican/Haitian students than for African American and White students. The sample consisted of 987 predominantly nontraditional college students. The depression rate for Dominican students was significantly greater than the rates for African American and White students and the depression rate for Puerto Rican students was significantly greater than the rate for African American students. Female students had a significantly high rate of depression than male students. However, within each racial/ethnic group, female gender was not significantly predictive of higher depression rates when compared to male students. However, for females within racial/ethnic groups, Dominican female students had a significantly higher rate of depression than African American female students. (Contains 3 tables.)