Torres Montesinos, ClaudiaOtero Otero, PatriciaBustamante, ByronBlanco Seoane, VanessaDíaz Fernández, OlgaVázquez González, Fernando Lino2020-07-022020-07-022017Torres, C.; Otero, P.; Bustamante, B.; Blanco, V.; Díaz, O.; Vázquez, F.L. Mental Health Problems and Related Factors in Ecuadorian College Students. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 530.http://hdl.handle.net/10347/23089Although the mental health problems of college students have been the subject of increasing research, there are no studies about its prevalence in Ecuadorian college students. The aim of this study was to determine the mental health problems and their associated factors in Ecuadorian freshmen university students. A sample of 1092 students (53.7% women; mean age = 18.3 years) were recruited from the Technical Particular University of Loja (Ecuador). Socio-demographic, academic, and clinical characteristics were gathered, as well as information on the participants’ mental health through a number of mental health screens. Prevalence of positive screens was 6.2% for prevalence of major depressive episodes, 0.02% for generalized anxiety disorders, 2.2% for panic disorders, 32.0% for eating disorders, 13.1% for suicidal risk. Mental health problems were significantly associated with sex, area of study, self-esteem, social support, personality and histories of mental health problems. The findings offer a starting point for identifying useful factors to target prevention and intervention strategies aimed at university studentseng© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Atribución 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Mental healthPrevalenceCorrelatesCollege studentsjournal article10.3390/ijerph140505301660-4601open access