Our children will one day be the leaders, it is therefore imperative that we take a good look at the current realities of modern adolescent depression and make massive efforts to prevent its growth and proliferation amongst our youth.
The hectic nature of modern life is placing inordinate pressures on our adolescent youth. Take a look at the following statistics and be amazed.
In case the realities of adolescent depression are not yet clear we are sure that the following statistics will bring the extent of the problem into clear focus. It is important to gain the attention of the general public through concrete concepts that have the power to sway even the most skeptical of minds. Hopefully, even the adolescent youth will begin to understand the problem at hand.
Fact: Twenty Percent Of Teenagers Are Sufferers
That is nearly 1 in 5 of the teenage population of the United States has experienced one form or another of clinical depression before they have even reach adulthood. This statistic should have made you jump as likely or not it will affect your family too.
As we dig deeper we find that there are about ten to fifteen percent of teenagers that have shown symptoms of adolescent depression and another five percent of the teenage population will have suffered from significant depression.
Shockingly, another alarming aspect to adolescent depression is the fact that there is little or no social acceptance when it concerns teenagers with such a condition, it is as if we consider it to be only the pains of growing up. What’s worse is the fact that as many as eight percent of teenagers will have experienced the re-occurrence of depression. This is alarming because when considering that only a mere five percent of the total national population suffer from depression.
Frighteningly, statistics suggest that when a teenager suffers a bout of adolescent depression it will generally last for about eight months. These same teenagers are also at risk that a subsequent attack of adolescent depression will strike them within a mere two years and the chances of this happening are about twenty to forty percent, on top of that there is a seventy percent chance that they will experience another attack of adolescent depression before they have even reached full adulthood.
Thirdly, another feature of adolescent depression is that quite a few teenagers will suffer from attacks of seasonal depression. This form of depression is most likely to strike during the wintertime, it is also found in places where the altitude is on the high side. Even the weather can play a significant part in the onset of seasonal depression, which means that teenagers also need to be aware of these external effects on the state of mind..
Fourthly, other figures related to adolescent depression reveal that dysthymia or a mild form of depression that lasts for a long time will affect about two percent of teenagers and a like percentage of teenagers are also likely to suffer from bipolar depression when they grow older. In fact, it is thought that as many as fifteen percent of teenagers that have suffered from major depression will later on be at risk of developing bipolar depression.
Unfortunately, it is believed that adolescent depression will affect teenagers no matter their social background, income level, gender, race or their achievements and that adolescent depression is acommon mental health problem affecting teenagers in the US.
