This is a cross-sectional descriptive study which aimed to determine the prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms among Filipino deportees from Sabah, Malaysia who arrived at the DSWD Processing Center for Displaced Persons at Mampang, Zamboanga City from February to March 2015. The Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment 7 (GAD-7) were used to gather the data. A translated Tausug and Tagalog version of these tools were utilized. Diagnosis of depressive and anxiety symptoms were based on the guidelines that came with PHQ-9 and GAD-7. Results revealed that a total of 166 respondents were included in this study chosen through quota sampling. The prevalence for depressive symptom was 4% (6 respondents) where only 5 deportees had moderately severe and 1 had severe depressive symptoms. The prevalence for anxiety symptoms was 3% where only five deportees had anxiety symptoms of which three were of moderate severity and two were severe.The most frequent depressive symptoms experienced by the deportees were hopelessness, sleeping disturbance and having little energy; whereas emotional manifestation of worrying was predominantly seen in anxiety symptoms screening. Majority of the Filipino deportees in this study expressed satisfaction and feeling of happiness on how they were handled through-out the deportation process. This may explain the low turn-out for the said conditions. With the need to institute psychological screening for deportees, and with the accessibility and ease of use of the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, it is recommended that these tools be used.

Keyword: Depression and anxiety symptoms Deportess from Malaysia Department of Social Welfare and Development Processing Center for Displaced Persons