Summer and winter patterns of seasonality in Chinese college students: A replication

The goal of this study is to replicate an earlier epidemiological finding o f seasonal changes in mood and behavior among Chinese medical students usin g an independent study population. Three hundred nineteen college students were surveyed with a Chinese version of the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Que stionnaire (SPAQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) in Jining, China, during March of 1996. The frequency of seasonal patterns and prevalence ra tes of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) were estimated and compared with d ata from the medical student survey conducted in the same city. The mean Gl obal Seasonality Score (GSS) of this college student sample was 9.9 +/- 4.9 ; 84% of the subjects reported some problems with the changing seasons. Sum mer difficulties were more prevalent than winter difficulties by a ratio of 1.9 to 1 (38.9% v 20.1%). The estimated rates of summer SAD and subsyndrom al-SAD (s-SAD) were 7.5% and 11.9%, respectively, as compared with the corr esponding winter figures of 5.6% and 6.3%. In addition, the prevalence esti mates of winter pattern or winter SADs were higher in males than in females , but the corresponding summer figures showed no gender difference. Compare d with the data from the medical student survey, this college student sampl e had a higher GSS (P < .01) but comparable summer to winter and female to male ratios for the prevalence of SADs (P < .05). These results replicate o ur previous findings that seasonal problems are common in China, but the pr edominant problems are summer difficulties rather than winter difficulties, and there is no female preponderance in the prevalence estimates of such p roblems. Both findings stand in contrast to most Western studies but are co nsistent with the only other published study performed in the Orient. Copyr ight (C) 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company.