The relationship of stress and self esteem with depression among Malaysian Armed Forces personnel

Depression within the military can have disastrous consequences. It can inhibit operational readiness and reduce the ability of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) in defending Malaysia’s sovereignty and protecting its national interests. Depression resulting from poor mental healt could affect non-attendance of employees, reduced work output, loss of income, and other poor physical and mental health ailments. The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship of stress and self-esteem with depression among the Malaysian Armed Forces personnel. A quantitative approach using a cross sectional design that provided results of the relationships of the domains involved were used. Itinvolved a sampling size of 400 respondents. The stress, self-esteem and depression were determined using survey in the form of a questionnaire. This study found that there are significant positive relationships between the two domains with depression in the environment of the MAF (R2=0.403). The domain of stress is more prominent than self-esteem in causing depression in the MAF. The outcome of this study can assist the MAF to plan strategic prevention and intervention to address the problem directly in the working environment and use it as a basis to formulate mental health programs and policies within the MAF.