What Percentage Of People Are Depressed

How Effectively Do Antidepressants Relieve The Symptoms

There are a lot of different medications for treating . But it’s difficult to predict how well a particular medication will help an individual. So doctors often first suggest taking a drug that they consider to be effective and relatively well tolerated. If it doesn’t help as much as expected, it’s possible to switch to a different medication. Sometimes a number of different drugs have to be tried before you find one that works.

Studies show that the benefit generally depends on the severity of the : The more severe the depression, the greater the benefits will be. In other words, antidepressants are effective against chronic, moderate and severe depression. They don’t help in mild depression.

The various antidepressants have been compared in many studies. Overall, the commonly used tricyclic antidepressants were found to be equally effective. Studies involving adults with moderate or severe have shown the following:

• Without antidepressants: About 20 to 40 out of 100 people who took a placebo noticed an improvement in their symptoms within six to eight weeks.
• With antidepressants: About 40 to 60 out of 100 people who took an antidepressant noticed an improvement in their symptoms within six to eight weeks.

In other words, antidepressants improved symptoms in about an extra 20 out of 100 people.

Antidepressants can also relieve long-term symptoms of chronic depressive disorder and chronic , and help make them go away completely.

Why Are So Many Teens Depressed

Here are some disturbing statistics about teen depression.;According to suicide.org, teen and adolescent suicides have continued to rise dramatically in recent years. Consider these alarming figures:

• Every 100 minutes a teen takes their own life.
• Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24.
• About 20 percent of all teens experience depression before they reach adulthood.
• Between 10 to 15 percent suffer from symptoms at any one time.
• Only 30 percent of depressed teens are being treated for it.

Some teens are more at risk for depression and suicide than others. These are known factors:

• Female teens develop depression twice as often than males.
• Abused and neglected teens are especially at risk.
• Adolescents who suffer from chronic illnesses or other physical conditions are at risk.
• Teens with a family history of depression or mental illness: between 20 to 50 percent of teens suffering from depression have a family member with depression or some other mental disorder.
• Teens with untreated mental or substance-abuse problems: approximately two-thirds of teens with major depression also battle another mood disorder like dysthymia, anxiety, antisocial behaviors, or substance abuse.
• Young people who experienced trauma or disruptions at home, including divorce and deaths of parents.

Statistics On Depression Treatment

As awareness of the prevalence of depression increases, more people are seeking treatment. More than half of the 17.3 million American adults who reported having a major depressive episode in 2017 also said they received treatment for their depression. Specific depression treatment statistics include:

• Approximately 67 percent of people who had a major depressive episode said they received treatment
• Around 72 percent of people who had a major depressive episode and a severe impairment said they received treatment
• The percentages of people who had a major depressive episode and received treatment rose from 2016 to 2017 in both genders, most age groups, all races and every employment type

Depression recovery statistics may not offer the clearest picture of how the disorder affects people. Due to the nature of depressive conditions, there is no absolute cure, but ongoing treatment and therapy can mitigate depressive symptoms.

After receiving treatment for depression, people may experience diminished symptoms and improved moods due to effective antidepressant medications or coping mechanisms. However, the symptoms of a depressive disorder can return later in the persons life and require additional treatment if treatment stops.

Understanding how prevalent the condition is and accepting medical assistance will help people manage their depression effectively. Deciding to receive treatment for depression is a significant step toward improved mental health.

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Genetic Risk Factors For Depression

Statistics show that the children of parents who suffer from depression are more likely to develop the disorder themselves. A person has a 27% chance of inheriting a mood disorder from one parent, and this chance doubles if both parents are affected. Studies of the occurrence of depression in twins show a 70 percent chance for both identical twins to suffer from depression, which is twice the rate of occurrence in fraternal twins.

Last medically reviewed on March 10, 2011

While Men Commit Suicide More Often Women Are Likelier To Attempt It

Between 2008 and 2009, according to the CDC, 3.5 percent of adult males and 3.9 percent of adult females had suicidal thoughts. 1 percent of both men and women made suicide plans, while 0.4 percent of adult men and 0.5 percent of adult women attempted suicide.

Other researchers find an even greater discrepancy between male and female suicide attempts, with the American Association of Suicidology;reporting 3 female attempts for each male attempt. And there’s a well-established gender gap in depression rates, with;significantly more women suffering from it.

This is somewhat surprising in light of the fact that suicide is almost four times more common among men than women in the US:

This disparity between suicidal thoughts and behavior and actual suicide rates is known as the “gender paradox” of suicide. At least some of it can be accounted for by the fact that men are more likely to use guns to commit suicide than women, suggesting that part of the differential in suicide rates could be due to women choosing less lethal methods to attempt suicide than men do.

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What Should You Consider When Deciding Whether Or Not To Take Antidepressants

Whether antidepressants are an option will depend on things like the severity of the symptoms. Other aspects can also play a role in the decision:

• Are you going to psychotherapy or are you planning to?
• Have you taken antidepressants before and did they help?
• How bad do you think the potential side effects are compared to the possible benefits?

The question of side effects can also be key when choosing which drug to take: Some people might be more keen to avoid digestion problems. Others might prefer to avoid dizziness, decreased sex drive or erection problems.

It only makes sense to use antidepressants if the is correct. Specialists believe that some people are prescribed antidepressants unnecessarily. The fact that a lot more people take antidepressants nowadays suggests that this is true. They are sometimes already prescribed for milder symptoms, even though it’s not clear whether they help in mild .

But it’s still important to make sure that severe is diagnosed and treated properly. Antidepressants can be helpful here, and for some people may be the only way that they can get back into a daily routine or start going to psychotherapy.

Statistics Related To Mental Health Disorders

The following are the latest statistics available from the National Institute of Mental Health Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health:

• Mental health disorders account for several of the top causes of disability in established market economies, such as the U.S., worldwide, and include: major depression , manic depression , schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

• An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older — about 1 in 4 adults — suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

• Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. In particular, depressive illnesses tend to co-occur with substance abuse and anxiety disorders.

• Approximately 9.5% of American adults ages 18 and over, will suffer from a depressive illness each year.

• Women are nearly twice as likely to suffer from major depression than men. However, men and women are equally likely to develop bipolar disorder.
• While major depression can develop at any age, the average age at onset is the mid-20s.
• With bipolar disorder, which affects approximately 2.6% of Americans age 18 and older in a given year — the average age at onset for a first manic episode is during the early 20s.

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Depression Statistics Everyone Should Know

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

• Resources

Depression affects people from all walks of life, no matter their background. It can affect people of all ages as well. Unfortunately, theres still a stigma that surrounds mental health issues,;and some people view disorders like depression as a weakness. But, similar to the way anyone can develop certain physical health issues, mental health issues arent always preventable.

Understanding the latest depression statistics could increase awareness about mental health, and recognizing how widespread it is could also help reduce the stigmawhich might encourage more people to seek treatment.

Is There A Link Between Video Games And Violent Behavior

While experts disagree about what impact violent games have on actual violent behavior, some research shows a link between playing violent games and aggressive thoughts and behavior. For a kid who already has an aggressive personality, that could be a problem, say experts, since video games reward those aggressive tendencies.

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Depression In Children And Teens

Mental Health America reports that teen depression is also rising and is higher than depression in young adults. The website states that 1 in 5 teenagers in America struggles with clinical depression. Academic, social and family difficulties all factor into why adolescents develop this condition.

For young adults, depression is common in part due to academic and social pressure. For example, most young adults use social media to interact with friends and other peers. Medical sources revealed that social media and depression are connected, which puts people who use Facebook, Twitter and other mediums at risk of developing a mental health issue. Economic instability also causes depression as young adults face challenges finding and maintaining full-time employment.

Depression in children and teenagers can show itself in various forms, including:

• Increased anger or irritability
• No longer being interested in social activities or recreational hobbies
• Suicidal thoughts

Addressing teen depression could decrease the prevalence of the mental disorder in older demographics. Receiving treatment at a young age and learning coping mechanisms from therapy may prevent severe forms of depression in adulthood.

Statistical Methods And Measurement Caveats

Diagnostic Assessment:

Population:

• The entirety of NSDUH respondents for the major depressive episode estimates is the civilian, non-institutionalized population aged 12-17 and 18 years old or older residing within the United States.
• The survey covers residents of households and persons in non-institutional group quarters .
• The survey does not cover persons who, for the entire year, had no fixed address ; were on active military duty; or who resided in institutional group quarters .
• Some adults and adolescents in these excluded categories may have had a major depressive episode in the past year, but they are not accounted for in the NSDUH major depressive episode estimates.

Survey Non-response:

• In 2017, 32.9% of the selected NSDUH sample did not complete the interview.
• Reasons for non-response to interviewing include: refusal to participate ; respondent unavailable or no one at home ; and other reasons such as physical/mental incompetence or language barriers .
• Adults and adolescents with major depressive episode may disproportionately fall into these non-response categories. While NSDUH weighting includes non-response adjustments to reduce bias, these adjustments may not fully account for differential non-response by mental illness status.

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What Are The Challenges Of Measuring Depression

Content validity: We might want to know whether the questionnaires were measuring depression at all. How would we be sure of this?;

We could first think about which emotions and behaviors we associate with depression sadness, tiredness, guilt, a loss of energy, and so on and we could make sure that the questionnaires ask about all of these emotions.

Criterion validity: We could also find out if peoples responses to the questions are correlated with other things we associate with depression.;

For example, if someone is severely depressed, we might expect that they are also less sociable and that they perform poorly at work or school. We could test whether this is the case for people who scored high on a questionnaire for depression.

Discriminant validity: We could also test whether their responses are uncorrelated with things we dont associate with depression, such as their height or intelligence.

Internal consistency: Another important thing wed want to know is whether the questions were actually tapping into the same phenomenon.;

Do all the questions measure depression or are some measuring other concepts instead? To test for this, we could look at how closely peoples answers to different questions align with each other.

One consequence of this focus is that scores shouldnt also measure other concepts.;

Fortunately, there are straightforward ways to test this: we could measure how consistent different doctors were at diagnosing the same patients.

Are Teens Today Unprepared For Lifes Challenges

Some of the experts believe that we have raised our teens to have unrealistic expectations. Along with the messages from modern media sources that suggest that we should always feel good, they say many parents havent taught their kids the kind of coping skills they need to survive in chaotic times.

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The Risk Of Suicide In Todays Teens

Any threat of suicide should be taken seriously. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger because of thoughts of suicide, please call 911 immediately.

If you do not live in the U.S., please call your local emergency number. Help is always available. Stay on the phone with the operator and wait for help to arrive.

Remember that other people care. If you are not in immediate danger, but want to talk with someone about your suicidal feelings, you can call the National Hopeline Network for Suicide Prevention at 1-800-SUICIDE or 1-800-784-2433. Recognizing the red flags could save a life.

How Is Prevalence Defined And Measured

The widespread issue of underreporting means accurate and representative data on the prevalence of disorders is difficult to define. If relying on mental health diagnoses alone, this underestimation would be severe. Prevalence figures would be likely to reflect healthcare spending rather than giving a representative perspective on differences between countries; high-income countries would likely show significantly higher prevalence as a result of more diagnoses.

The data presented in this entry by the Institute of Health Metrics & Evaluation is therefore based on a combination of sources, including medical and national records, epidemiological data, in addition to survey data. Where raw data for a particular country is scarce, epidemiological data and meta-regression models must be used based on available data from neighbouring countries. Data quality issues are described below.

The data presented here therefore offers an;estimate of mental health prevalence based on medical, epidemiological data, surveys and meta-regression modelling.

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Fact: Depression Often Occurs With Other Health Conditions

It is not uncommon for someone with clinical depression to have another mental health condition or a physical health condition, or both. In some cases, an illness may trigger depression, while in others depression can lead to complications and other mental and physical health problems. Any kind of serious, severe, chronic, or terminal illness can lead a patient to develop depression. Some of the more common illnesses that trigger depression are cancer and any condition that causes chronic pain or disability, such as fibromyalgia or multiple sclerosis.

Commonly co-occurring mental health conditions include anxiety disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. It is not always possible to determine whether depression causes another condition, but it is possible, especially when depression goes untreated. For instance, depression can lead to substance use disorders, because some people use substances to self-medicate. With some health conditions, co-occurring depression affects many people:

• One quarter of cancer patients develops depression.
• One third of heart attack survivors will struggle with depression.
• Half of patients with Parkinsonâs disease experiences depression.
• Fifty to 75 percent of eating disorder patients will have episodes of depression.
• More than one quarter of people with substance use disorders experience depression.

Depression Is Complicated This Is How Our Understanding Of The Condition Has Evolved Over Time

People often think of depression as a single, uniform condition deep sadness and a loss of interest in the activities that someone usually enjoys. But depression is complicated and its difficult to define what it means in an objective way.;

This is because depression is a condition of the mind: it is diagnosed based on peoples psychological symptoms and behavior, not from a brain scan or markers in their blood or DNA.;

When we diagnose depression, we have to rely on people to recall their own symptoms. We have to trust that doctors will observe and probe their symptoms reliably. We have to analyze this information to understand what people with depression experience that other people dont.;

Our ability to do all of these things accurately has changed over time, and so has our understanding of depression.;

This comes down to three factors.;

First, many countries now screen for depression in the general population, not just in a subset of people who are seen by a small number of doctors. In many studies, researchers track patients over long periods of time to understand how the condition progresses.

Second, we use questionnaires and interviews that treat depression as a condition that can occur at different levels and change with time.;

Third, we have better statistical tools to help us refine questionnaires and understand how symptoms are related to one another.;

Surveying depression in the general population

Measuring depression on levels

Analyzing depression with more rigour

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