Depression in Youth: Statistics, Causes, Symptoms and Interventions

N A M E O F T H E S T U D E N T
N A M E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y
Depression in Youth

Introduction
Mental health includes the emotional, psychological
and social well-being that impacts on the thinking
pattern, feelings, behavior and attitude. Mental
health is a equally crucial as physical health
irrespective of age, gender and any other social and
biological divisions. With the changes in lifestyle,
stress and other socio-psychological factors the
mental health of teenagers and young population is
in very dangerous situation and even deteriorating
day by day. The purpose of this presentation is
discussing the current situation of youth in terms of
depression. For this the presentation presents the
statistical factors, case studies and present
interventions for improving mental health situation.

Depression in youth
Depression or in other words major depressive
disorder is a medical illness that interferes with
the mental state, mood, attitude, perception
and regular activities such as sleeping, eating,
working and learning. Depression can happen
at any age, however often the symptoms begin
with the early 20s or 30s (Hetrick et al., 2015).
In many cases the symptoms have been found
before 20 as well. Surprisingly the increasing
numbers of youth who belong to under the age
group of 15 to 30 are suffering from depression
and general anxiety disorder. It also cause
suicidal thoughts and even suicidal tendency in
patients.

Statistics 1
Around 1 in 35 young
population who are 4 to
7 years old experience
depressive disorder
Each year, almost 5,000
young people, ages 15 to
24, kill themselves
(Cheek et al., 2014).
Source: Healthdirect.gov.au., 2018