Predicting Depression Risk Using Logistic Regression: A Case Study Based on Academic and Lifestyle Factors

Depression has increasingly become a serious public health issue, with students and working professionals often among the most affected. Academic demands and financial challenges have been identified as key stressors, and recent global surveys show a noticeable rise in depression rates among young people, partly due to heavier workloads and reduced social support. In this study, logistic regression is applied to perform binary classification of depressive tendencies using the publicly available “Playground Series S4E11” dataset from Kaggle. This dataset contains demographic details along with academic and psychological indicators. The analysis followed a structured process—covering data cleaning, feature transformation, and training of the logistic regression model. Evaluation of the model using accuracy, recall, and Receiver Operating Characteristic-Area Under Curve (ROC-AUC) produced scores of 84%, 88%, and 0.913, respectively. Among the input variables, suicidal thoughts, academic or work pressure, and financial stress were identified as the most influential indicators. These findings indicate that even relatively simple and transparent models can serve as effective tools for the early identification of depression. When incorporated into digital systems, such approaches could help deliver timely support within educational institutions and healthcare environments.