Chilhood_Depression

Depression, also known as unipolar mood disorder, for instance, is a common mental illness characterized by sadness, loss of interest in activities, decreased energy and recurring feelings of despair. The intensity and frequency of the symptoms differentiate the illness from normal mood swings. Depression is already the fourth cause of the global disease burden, and by 2020 it is expected to rank second following ischemic heart disease (UN Chronicle). Depression is one of the leading causes of teen suicides. According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, in January of 2008, youths that attempt suicide usually have more than one mental health problem, often try to commit suicide more than once, and may have a family member who has attempted or committed suicide. Studies had shown that more than 90% of teens who try to take their life have a mental health problem such as depression, manic depression, schizophrenia, or severe behavioral or substance abuse problems. There are many different factors that can cause adolescents and children to fall into this kind of behavior. According to The Hindu, February of 2010, and the School Health Journal, August of 2009, some of these factors are pressure to perform well and failure in examinations, lack of family support system, family breakdown, over competitive education, alcoholism of a parent, financial problems, and sexual abuse along with other factors are reason to drive children to chronic depression. Signs of depression can vary from child to child. In the School Health Journal, August of 2009, it states that some signs of depression are, being moody or stubborn and easily upset, becoming withdrawn and avoiding friends and activities, not enjoying things as much as usual, avoiding school, feeling unhappy, tiredness and lack of energy or attention, and also changes in apatite and weight. Along with the signs of depression there are also the symptoms that the child or adolescent feels while going through depression. Symptoms can also vary depending on the child affected by depression. On October 7, 2002 Josh Ulick wrote an article named Teen Angst – Sick or Just Sullen' In this article it states some of the symptoms children may be facing. Symptoms such as headaches, absence from school or drop in grades, bouts of shouting or crying, reckless behavior, extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure, and a loss of interest in friends. This article also states that major depression usually begins in late teens but has been diagnosed in children as young as four years old. The Times (London), September 4, 2010, states that health professionals can be reluctant to label kids with depression, but they agree that it is being seen in younger and younger children – so much so that depression counselors are even moving down the age range into pre-school centers for children under five. Depression in young is becoming so common that mainstream schools are increasingly employing on-site counseling services. Paul Bain says “There is a lot of economic and social pressure. They live in a state of heightened anxiety. The kids have no way out and can only retreat into their own little minds. If I was in those children’s states, I’d be depressed too.” and “Children need to be exposed in bearable doses to what the real life holds. There should be a clear demarcation between parent and child.” In my opinion I agree with Paul Bain. I believe that with stress of the economy it is becoming difficult for parents to maintain there normal life causing them to be much stressed and be angry or critical on a day to day basis. If the child cannot go to there parent for comfort there is no escape. In an article in the New York Times written on September 4, 2007 by Alex Berenson and Benedict Carey, leading psychiatric researchers linked the 2004 increase in the suicide rate for children and adolescents to a warning by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the use of antidepressants in minors. The FDA warning, the researchers suggested, might have resulted in severely depressant teens going without needed treatment. In studies of data collected before ’04, Dr. Gibbons, Dr. Mann and others found clear associations between prescription patterns and suicide rates. For instance, prescription rates for patients from ages ten to twenty-four rose steadily in the 90’s, while the suicide rate in that age group fell 28% from 1990 to 2003, according to a government report. In a study, researchers at Columbia University, analyzing data from 1990 to 2000, found that for every 20% increase in the use of antidepressants among adolescents, there were five fewer suicides per 100,000 people each year. But an argument made in the Wall Street Journal on September 3, 2008 by Sarah Rubenstein states that, though it is still unclear whether a drop in antidepressant use is what caused the rise in suicide rate. The suicide rate pertains to the entire population and doesn’t indicate who took antidepressants and who didn’t. Dr. Ten Have and other experts, while noting that it may still turn that a reduction in prescriptions is a leading to increased suicides among young people, said that the new study neither proved nor disproved this. More than 6% of children and adolescents may have generalized social anxiety disorder and thus increased risks of depression, dropping out of school, and suicide. And the prevalence rate for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is 12.6%, Dr. Murray B. Stein reported at the annual conference of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. These findings are based on the results of a survey of 190 children and adolescents who were enrolled at primary care providers in the San Diego area. The patients, along with their parents, completed several questionnaires, including the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV (ADIS). They were primarily white, and about half were female; 54% were aged 8-12 years and 46% were aged 13-17 years. On the basis of the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV, the prevalence of generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD) was 6.3% among children and adolescents who were moderately to severely impair. The prevalence -rate was 6% for lifetime major depressive disorder. But these diagnoses were highly dependent on the threshold level used, noted Dr. Stein of the University of California, San Diego (Clinical Psychiatry News). According to the School Health Journal, over 8,000 children under ten years old suffer from severe depression and according to an article named Non Insured Teens Not Seeking Depression Help in USA Today Magazine in July of 2009, 8.2% (2,000,000) of American youths aged twelve to seventeen experience at least one major depressive episode. Before puberty, the rates of mood disorders are higher in boys; after puberty, girls experience about twice the rates found in boys says Scott Shannon in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine. The Canadian Medical Association Journal in January of 2008 states that females are twice as likely as males to attempt suicide. Factors that could possibly contribute to the rise in teen suicide rate include alcohol use, access to firearms, and the influence of the internet social networks says Sarah Rubenstein in the Wall Street Journal in the September of 2008. Teens, Drugs, and Sadness by Nancy Shute states that 500,000 teens attempt suicide each year. Out of that 500,000, 2,000 teens succeed in their suicide attempts. A Yale study, presented at the recent joint Pediatric Academic Societies and American Academy of Pediatrics meeting in Boston, cites an overall increase of 59 percent in psychiatric-related visits between 1995 and 1999, compared with a 20 percent increase in non-psychiatric-related visits. "We reviewed 101,921 visits to the children's ED at Yale," says lead author Karen A. Santucci, M.D., assistant professor at Yale's pediatric emergency department." In 1995, 2.49 percent of the children's ED visits were psych-related, compared with 3.94 percent in 1999." In raw numbers, that was an increase of about 350 patients, a bigger increase than for any other chief complaint, she says. Of the psychiatric complaints, the most common diagnoses reported were behavioral changes, ingestions, suicide attempts, depression and violence. Behavioral complaints related to aggression and out-of-control behavior rose from 28 percent in 1995 to 35 percent in 1999 (H&HN Hospitals & Health Networks). Currently, 121 million people suffer from depression. Every year, one million people commit suicide, 60 per cent of which are the outcome of depressive disorders says the UN Chronicle. Only one in five teens gets treatment for their depression. The predicted level for patients receiving no antidepressants would have been 19%, but the level was actually at a high of 64% in the September 2005, reported in the Brown University Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology Update in September 2007. Despite some federal support and several examples of success, however, far too few children and youths who need mental-health care are receiving it, experts say. Offering such programs requires support within the school and the district, cooperation with community health services, and backing from parents, who may be wary of schools' involvement in the sensitive area of mental health. Often, it takes a determined school or community leader to make such programs happen, say mental-health professionals. And when districts do get involved, they can face legal challenges. Between 75 percent and 80 percent of children who have a mental-health need do not receive treatment, said Olga Acosta Price, the deputy director of The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, based at George Washington University, in Washington. At the same time, Ms. Acosta said, it is widely considered "best practice" among districts to have early-intervention teams at schools that can work with students when problems appear. In 2000, the federal government spotlighted the issue by holding the Surgeon General's Conference on Children's Mental Health. A summary from that meeting presented the stakes: One in 10 children and adolescents suffers from a mental illness severe enough to cause impairment, but only about 20 percent of them receive care. Two years later, President Bush formed the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to study ways to improve mental-health services nationwide. A subcommittee focused on issues involving children and adolescents, again spelling out how schools should be part of supporting mental health for students. Children receive more services through schools than any other public agency, so "federal, state, and local agencies should more fully recognize and address the mental-health needs of youth in the education system," the subcommittee said in its recommendations, released in February 2003. In addition to offering support services within schools, the commission recommended that teachers and other school personnel be trained to screen students for possible problems. The only hope we have for children and adolescents to get through depression is by taking action. Adults need to be more aware of the way children are feeling and the way that stress and anxiety affect them. Finding children the help they need before things are pushed too far could greatly help lower the suicide and depression rates and can help stop children from hurting themselves. Work Cited: "Schools' Role in Mental-Health Care Uneven, Experts Say." Education Week 26.35 (2007): 14. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. Document URL http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do'&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=AONE&docId=A165260865&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=nysl_nc_mexhs&version=1.0 Wachter, Kerri. "Generalized SAD prevalence might surpass 6%: social anxiety disorder is tied to increased risk of dropping out of school. (Children and Adolescents)." Clinical Psychiatry News 31.6 (2003): 1+. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. Document URL http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do'&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=AONE&docId=A105368182&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=nysl_nc_mexhs&version=1.0 "GP Clinical: Journals watch - Child's play, gambling and asthma." GP 15 Sept. 2006: 27. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. Document URL http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do'&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=AONE&docId=A151412145&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=nysl_nc_mexhs&version=1.0 PAGE, DOUGLAS. "More Blues In ED'" H&HN Hospitals & Health Networks 74.8 (2000): 24. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. Document URL http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do'&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=AONE&docId=A64715668&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=nysl_nc_mexhs&version=1.0 Park, Katrin Eun-Myo. "Up to one fifth of the world's children have mental or behavioural problems. (Health Watch)." UN Chronicle June-Aug. 2002: 27+. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. Document URL http://find.galegroup.com/gtx/infomark.do'&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=AONE&docId=A91088423&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=nysl_nc_mexhs&version=1.0 Berenson, Alex, and Benedict Carey. "Experts Question Study on Youth Suicide Rates." New York Times [New York] 14 Sept. 2007, late ed.: A14. Print. Braal, Bernice De. "Depression in Childhoon--is There an Epidemic' Are Media Reports of Escalating Childhood Depression Accurate' Bernice De Braal Discusses the Incidence and Lists Reliable Sources of Information for Practitioners, Parents, and Yound People." School Health Journal (2009). Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Sept. 2010. . "Depression a Leading Cause of Suicides." The Hindu (English) 25 Feb. 2010. Print. Naish, John. "Can Children as Young as Three Be Depressed' More and More Pre-school Children Are Being Diagnosed with Depression. Are Their Parents to Blame, Asks John Naish." The Times (London, England) 4 Sept. 2010. Print. Rubenstein, Sarah. "Elevated Rate of Teen Suicide STirs Concern; Trend Linked to Drop in Use of Antidepressants After FDA Paised Worries About Risks." Wall Street Journal [New York] 3 Sept. 2008, Eastern ed.: D1. Print. Shannon, Scott. "Integrative Approaches to Pediactric Mood Disorders." Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine Sept.-Oct. 2009. ProQuest Newspapers. Web. 30 Sept. 2010. . Szumilas, Magdalena, and Stanely P. Kutcher. "Youth and Suicide." Canadian Medical Association 178.3 (2008): 286. ProQuest Newspapers. Web. 4 Oct. 2010. .