In a sample of Slovak university students, this tool was used by Hajduk et al. [74], who found a mean PHQ 9 score of 8.54 and identified 35.5% of respondents as students with depression. These authors [74] also emphasized that Slovak students are characterized by a higher prevalence of depression than anxiety and, simultaneously, students with higher scores tend to perceive their mental health as less satisfactory. When comparing the mean PHQ 9 scores obtained in international studies, mild depression was found among university students in many countries, such as Malaysia [75], Turkey [56], Germany, China [76], Croatia [77], Japan [78], or Colombia [69]. By using this depression-screening tool, female students acquired higher scores than male students [79].
