Article Medically Reviewed By:
Carol Landau, PhD
Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Brown Medical School Providence, RI
Overview
What Is It?
If you are depressed, you feel a sense of helplessness, hopelessness or despair. You lose interest in your favorite activities, may experience changes in appetite, weight and sleep patterns, have difficulty concentrating and may be preoccupied with death or suicide.
Feelings of sadness can be normal, appropriate and even necessary during life's setbacks or losses. Or you may feel blue or unhappy for short periods without reason or warning, which also is normal and ordinary. But if such feelings persist or impair your daily life, you may have a depressive disorder. Severity, duration and the presence of other symptoms are factors that distinguish ordinary sadness from a depressive disorder.
Depression can happen to anyone of any age, race, class or gender. It afflicts almost 19 million Americans each year, 12 million of whom are women. Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression. Many women first experience symptoms of depression during their 20s and 30s. Once you experience depression, there's a 40 percent chance you'll be depressed again within two years. Once you've experienced two episodes, you have a 75 percent chance of being depressed again in the following five years.
A complex combination of physiological, social, environmental, cultural, hormonal, biological and psychological factors may contribute to the reasons why women experience depression at a higher rate than men.
Depression affects both mind and body. If you are depressed, you feel a sense of helplessness, hopelessness or despair. You lose interest in your favorite activities; may experience changes in appetite, weight and sleep patterns; have difficulty concentrating; and may be preoccupied with death or suicide.
Additionally, depression often occurs in conjunction with certain chronic illnesses, like diabetes, and after a heart attack or stroke. Research suggests that depression is a risk factor for the development of coronary artery disease and may even be a major risk factor for osteoporosis. It also can develop as a result of conditions that cause unrelieved pain. Left untreated, depression contributes to increased complications, prolonged recovery time and a greater chance of death.
The good news is that depression is a treatable illness. Yet, 10 to 30 percent of people treated for a major depressive episode will have an incomplete recovery, with persistent symptoms of depression or dysthymia.
One reason that treatment for depression is inadequate is that many people do not know or are confused about where to seek mental health treatment. Another reason is that many individuals do not perceive depression as a real medical condition that should or could be treated. Also, there is still a social stigma attached to mental illnesses like depression. These percepti...
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