Someone once said that the statistics of depression are miserable, and in fact, the statistics showing how many American people are depressed are staggering. For example, the National Institute of Mental Health, called the NIMH, said that depression affects about 17 million adults every year in America.
Unfortunately, this is much more than cancer, coronary heart disease and, even more than AIDS! Moreover, they indicate that in their estimates, 15 percent of cases of chronic depression may end in suicide. Women are said to be twice as possible as men to be chronically depressed. And 90% of suicides had a diagnosis of mental illness and it’s generally a depressive disorder.
Other depression statistics show that nearly 80-90% of all cases can be treated successfully and effectively. The information is supported by the American Psychiatric Association or called APA.
The National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association has stated that an estimated billion a year is lost to depression. Mostly this is attributed to medical costs, lost productivity and of course absenteeism from the work force. Also, 80-90% of people who have a serious mental illness are unemployed.
You may want to know what is depression. There are three different types of depression, bipolar or manic depression, major depression and finally dysthymia. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has stated that major depression may affect as many as 15% of Americans at some point during their lives.
Major depression is said to come in the episodes, while dysthymia doesn’t come in the episodes at all, but rather is persistent through many years. According to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Depression Statistics indicate nearly 10 million American people who may have dysthymia every year.
Bipolar or manic depression is much less common, as it is reported in Depression Statistics that only approximately 6 million or 3% of Americans are affected by this kind of depression in a given year.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has reported that having a serious medical illness will also cause depression. For instance of those who have had a heart attack, they will have a 40% chance of feeling depressed.
Really terrifying on the subject of depression statistics is the great depression facts that roughly 80% of people who are currently experiencing depression symptoms are not receiving treatment. Also 4% of adolescents will develop serious depression and truly unfortunate is the fact that suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for those aged 10 to 24 years old. It is also expected that depression will become the world’s 2nd most universal health problem by the year 2020.
Tags: american psychiatric association, deal with depression, depression statistics, great depression, manic depression, manic depressive association, national depressive and manic depressive association, statistics of depression, symptoms of depression
