The mental disorders become frequently and mean great strain on the modern societies. Corresponding to the latest data projected over the next decade in the European Union, one in four people will struggle with mental disorders and children should not be exceptions either. The most important health problem of the XXI century is the depression and its consequences. General psychological state of Romanian young people, was examined by few studies, so about the incidence of childhood - adolescent depressive symptoms and about pathomechanism few data are available. The object of our investigation it was the testing the prevalence of adolescent depression, its incidence, gender and ethnic diversity of depressive symptoms. The test was performed in five elementary schools. We examined depression symptoms on pupils. Our population were 6th – 7th grade adolescents between the ages of 12–13. We examined separately Romanian, Hungarian and Roma ethnic students (N = 475). Strengths of our study, it were that it wasn’t similar study that searched, the incidence of depression symptoms and its frequency of measurements. Knowledge about the depressed adolescent students and its incidence, may be important to the parents, doctors, teachers, school – mental health – and public health professionals. It can be important in the future for the people who draft health promotion activities and prevention programs, that 26,5 percent of adolescents have reported more depressive symptoms, while 26,3 percent can report in the future.
Keywords: Adolescent depression, race diversity, health promotion, health education.