Psychological Health: Depression

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Psychological Health Depression
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Definition

• Mood disorder characterized by loss of interest,
  sadness, hopelessness, loss of appetite,
  disturbed sleep and other physical symptoms
• Most common mood disorder

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Features

• A feeling of sadness and hopelessness
• Poor appetite and weight loss
• Insomnia or disturbed sleep
• Restlessness or fatigue
• Thoughts of worthlessness and guilt
• Trouble concentrating or making decisions
• Thoughts of death or suicide

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Recognizing Warning Signs

• Expressing the wish to be dead
• Social withdrawal
• A sudden, inexplicable lightening of mood
• Attempted suicide

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Dont Know You Have Depression?

• Among those suffering from depression, most do
  not know that they have a treatable illness
• Many blame themselves or are blamed by others
• Alienation of family and friends
• Friends and family can be used as support and
  help until an effective treatment is found

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Untreated Depression

• In terms of human suffering, the consequences of
  untreated depression are beyond measure
• Measures include
• Loss of self-esteem
• Self-medication with alcohol and drugs
• Family and career disruption
• Chronic disability
• Death
• Suicide is now the leading cause of death among
  children and adolescents

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Getting Help

• Self Help
• Find out what you can do on your own
• Become aware of actions and ideas
• Be assertive
• Communicate honestly
• Confrontation rather than avoidance

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Getting Help cont.

• Self Help cont.
• Use available resources (books, internet, etc.)
• Write in a journal
• Social networks (friends, family)
• Hotlines
• http//www.depression.org/
• http//www.depression.com/

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Getting Help cont.

• Peer Counseling and Support Groups
• Health centers or an education department on
  campus
• Self-help groups
• Sharing concerns with others
• Professional Help
• Optional
• DONT DO IT YOURSELF!

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Treating Depression

• Depends on severity
• Best initial treatment
• Drug therapy
• Psychotherapy
• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
• Effective for severe depression when other
  approaches have failed

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Mainstream Therapies

• 20 of the people in the United States who suffer
  from depression report using unconditional
  therapies such as acupuncture, body movement
  therapy, homeopathy, qigong, faith healing, or
  herbs or other natural substances
• With one exception, St. Johns Wort, these
  therapies have NOT been shown to be effective
  through the placebo effect

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Feeling Better

• Make Life Easier
• Recognize that there may be certain times of the
  day when you feel better and use that to your
  advantage.
•  
• Break large tasks into smaller ones set
  priorities and take things one at a time avoid
  taking on too much responsibility and setting
  overly difficult goals.
• Try not to expect too much from yourself so as to
  lessen any feeling of failure you may have.
•  

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Feeling Better

• Activities such as exercise, attending sports or
  cultural events or participating in a religious
  or social event can help you feel better. It is
  important not to overdo it feeling better takes
  time.
• Avoid alcohol and non-prescribed drugs. This kind
  of self-medication may provide a temporary
  "high", but in the end will intensify depression.

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Actions to Understand

• Recognize the features of depression but do not
  self diagnose you or someone you know.
• In some cases, it is clear cut such as a loss in
  the family while in other cases no trigger event
  is obvious
• Immediately find the appropriate help for
  yourself or the other person. 
• Once a person has an episode of depression, he or
  she is at higher risk for further episodes. Any
  new or worsening symptoms should be reported to
  the healthcare provider. The provider may
  recommend regular visits to monitor symptoms. The
  provider may also order blood tests to monitor
  the levels of medicines

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General Population

• For the general United States population, Boyd
  and Weissman report that at some point in their
  lives, 8-12 percent of men and 20-24 percent of
  women will meet the diagnostic criteria for major
  depression.
• Prevalence of depression varies greatly within
  the population however. The variance across
  populations points to the importance of social
  and cultural influences in the definition and
  expression of depression.