Over 280 million individuals of all ages are impacted by it, or roughly 3.5% of the world's population. A person's thoughts, actions, emotions, and general sense of wellbeing are all impacted by depression. People who are depressed frequently lose motivation, become disinterested in, or experience less pleasure or delight from activities that would ordinarily make them happy.

A depressed mood can indicate a physical illness, be a side effect of some medications, and be a symptom of mood disorders such major depressive disorder and dysthymia. It can also be a normal, transient response to life events like the death of a loved one. It may include depressive symptoms, trouble focusing and thinking clearly, a marked change in appetite, and an increase or decrease in sleep duration. Suicidal thoughts and emotions of helplessness or despair are common among people who are depressed. It may be long-term or short-term.

Contributing Factors For Depression

Life Events

Depression in adulthood can be influenced by childhood adversity, including sexual abuse, physical or mental abuse, neglect, bereavement, and unequal parental treatment of siblings. Specifically, physical or sexual abuse during childhood is strongly correlated with the survivor's lifelong chance of developing depression. Individuals who have gone through four or more traumatic experiences as children are 3.2 to 4.0 times more likely to have depression. Depressive moods have been related to poor housing quality, nonfunctioning housing, a lack of green spaces, and exposure to noise and air pollution. These factors should be taken into account during planning to avoid negative consequences.

Childhood And Adolescence

Childhood and teenage depression is similar to major depressive disorder in adults, however instead of the more typical adult symptoms of sadness, hopelessness, or emptiness, young patients may show increased irritability or behavioural dyscontrol. Depression is more common in kids who are stressed, grieving, or have other underlying medical conditions. In addition to other mood disorders, childhood depression frequently coexists with other mental illnesses, most frequently conduct disorder and anxiety disorder. Moreover, depression frequently runs in families.

Personality

People with high degrees of neuroticism are more prone to suffer depressive symptoms and to be diagnosed with a depressive disorder. Depression is linked to low extraversion. Depression is also linked to a lack of conscientiousness. Low conscientiousness can lead to a number of issues, such as disorganization and life unhappiness. These variables might make people more vulnerable to stress and depression.

Side Effect of Medical Treatment

Though the data is shaky and contradictory, it's likely that some early-generation beta-blockers cause depression in certain patients. There is compelling data supporting a connection between depression and alpha interferon treatment. According to one study, after three months of treatment, one-third of patients receiving alpha interferon had experienced depression.

Substance-induced

Abuse of several drugs can lead to or worsen depression, whether during intoxication, withdrawal, or long-term use. These include alcohol, stimulants like cocaine and amphetamines, opioids (including prescription painkillers and illegal drugs like heroin), sedatives (including prescription benzodiazepines), inhalants, and hallucinogens.

Non-psychiatric illness

Numerous nutritional deficiencies, neurological disorders, physiological issues, and infectious diseases can cause depression. These include hypoandrogenism (in men), Cushing's syndrome, Addison's disease, pernicious anemia, hypothyroidism, hyperparathyroidism, Lyme disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, celiac disease, chronic pain, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and HIV. Research has indicated that between 30 and 85 percent of individuals with persistent pain also experience clinical depression. According to a 2014 study by Hooley et al., there is a two- to three-fold increase in the risk of suicide death for people with chronic pain. The British Medical Association reported in 2017 that depression was present in 49% of patients in the UK who experienced chronic pain.

Psychiatric syndromes

A prominent symptom of several mental illnesses is depression. A collection of conditions known as mood disorders are thought to be the main causes of mood abnormalities. These include dysthymia, a chronic state of low mood whose symptoms do not meet the criteria for a major depressive episode, and major depressive disorder (also known as major depression or clinical depression), in which a person experiences a depressed mood for at least two weeks or loses interest in or enjoyment from almost all activities. In addition to one or more episodes of unusually elevated mood, energy, and cognition, bipolar disorder is another type of mood illness that may also involve one or more bouts of depression. A disorder (major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, etc.) may be referred to as seasonal affective disorder if the depression episodes have a seasonal pattern.

Inflammation

There is proof that depression and inflammation are related. Negative thoughts or their effects, such as stress, violence, or deprivation, might start inflammatory processes. Negative thoughts can therefore result in inflammation, which can then trigger depression. Furthermore, there is mounting proof that inflammation can lead to depression by inducing a "sickness mode" in the brain due to an increase in cytokines. Lethargy, one of the classic physical symptoms of illness, exhibits many of the same behaviours as depression. Cytokine levels in bipolar individuals typically rise during depressive episodes and decrease during remission. Clinical trials have also demonstrated that anti-inflammatory drugs taken in conjunction to antidepressants not only greatly reduce symptoms but also raise the percentage of patients who respond favourably to treatment. Common illnesses brought on by bacteria, viruses, or even parasites can induce inflammations that result in severe depression.

Historical legacy

Scholars have began to formulate theories regarding the ways in which depressive circumstances could be produced by the historical legacies of racism and colonialism. Depression can be viewed as a "rational response to global conditions" given the lived experiences of marginalized peoples, which include conditions of migration, class inequality, cultural genocide, labour exploitation, and social immobility (Ann Cvetkovich). Psychogeographical depression shares certain similarities with the "deprejudice" idea, which is a combination of prejudice and depression that was put up by Cox, Abramson, Devine, and Hollon in 2012. They support an integrative method of researching the frequently coexisting experiences. The issue that worries Cox, Abramson, Devine, and Hollon is how social stereotypes are frequently internalized, leading to unfavourable self-stereotypes that subsequently result in depression symptoms.

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