Globally, mental health is a major cause of disabilities and the leading cause of suicidal death. Mental health refers to the well-being of the mind that affects our feeling, reasoning and our actions. Our mental health condition affects how we cope with everyday life challenges, how we handle our emotions, how we socialize with our peers and the environment around us, and how we make choices (Felman, 2021). However, other factors may lead to mental illness, such as traumatizing life experiences, biological factors, or family history of mental disorders. These conditions include depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder that, if left untreated, can cause severe health problems. This essay discussed the causes, impacts, and possible treatment for depression.
Depression is one of the significant global contributors to the burden of diseases that affect people from all spheres of life, with approximately 322 million people suffering from the disease. Depression causes mood disorders. It causes an individual to have a negative perspective towards life in how they reason, feel and act (Friedrich, 2017). It deprives one of the enjoyments of life in daily activities that they were previously interested in doing. Furthermore, when this condition becomes severe, it can hinder an individual from performing their everyday task effectively and, at its worst, may lead to suicide. It is the leading cause of disability in high-income and low-income countries, with women being the most affected than their male counterparts.
Causes and symptoms of depression
Depression is caused by several psychological, biological, and social factors that may trigger the onset of the illness. These causes may also differ among children, adolescents, youths, and older people. For instance, depression in a child may result from physical abuse, unstable family relations that lead to marital conflicts, neglect, or low time to interact with the parents or from stressful activities. At the same time, in adolescents, it may be triggered by bullying in school, pressure from their peers, social media pressures, unstable family and economic conditions, sexual orientation, higher expectations from society on their performance.
Depression in old age may be caused by pain from chronic diseases, being isolated and neglected because of old age, and feeling like a burden to the family members because most depend on them for financial support and physical support if they are immobile. Symptoms of depression include lack of interest in activities and feeling hopeless in life. Other symptoms are being easily irritated by minor issues in life, having suicidal thoughts that keep on recurring, blaming yourself over past failures and experiences, feeling restless and fear, and irregular sleeping patterns whereby a person may either experience insomnia or sleep a lot (“Depression (major depressive disorder) – Symptoms and causes”, 2021). When these symptoms are detected early, proper support can be offered to the person.
Effects of depression
When depression is left untreated, it can significantly affect a person’s quality of life. Severe depression takes a toll on physical health, particularly on patients who are suffering from chronic diseases. This patient finds it hard to comply with the doctor’s instructions making them make poor health choices (Friedrich, 2017). They do not take their medications as prescribed, and most do not follow the health care advice given to them, which reduces their life span. Most people suffering from depression involve themselves in substance abuse such as alcohol and smoking as a way of finding comfort as it keeps them away from the reality of life for a moment. This may result in chronic diseases such as lung cancer and self-harm to their bodies, leading to suicide (Mohamed, Ahmad, Hassaan & Hassan, 2020). Additionally, depression also disrupts our sleeping patterns, where one may either lack sleep or sleep excessively. This affects a person’s concentration and quality of thinking while making decisions. Depression also affects our relationships with the environment around us; for instance, family members may find it hard to cope living with a person suffering from the illness. Similarly, the quality of our performance is also affected at work, school, and the community, leading to a loss of many productive hours in a person’s life.
Treatment of depression
There are various ways of treating depression which can be either medical or psychological. Medical treatment involves administering antidepressants, which are medicines prescribed by a psychiatrist that have proven to be effective in the treatment of depression. They work by balancing the neurotransmitters, a chemical found in the brain that regulates our emotions. They include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), atypical antidepressants, tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), and monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) (Jakobsen, Gluud & Kirsch, 2019). These medications can cause side effects to the patient, such as weight gain, nausea, headaches, and fatigue. Another way of treating depression is through psychotherapy, which involves having a dialogue with the affected person by a professional psychologist in order to help them manage or do away with negative thoughts for the sake of their mental well-being (Eddington et al., 2016). In addition, this is done through interpersonal therapy, whose goal is to improve the patient’s social relationships, or cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on making the person have positive thoughts.
In conclusion, mental health is a global concern that affects a person’s social, psychological, and physical life. Depression is one of the mental conditions characterized by the inability to think about a happy future. It affects people from all areas of life and age. In severe cases, it may lead to suicide. It can be treated by antidepressants and psychotherapy.
References
Depression (major depressive disorder) – Symptoms and causes. (2021). Retrieved 1 June 2021, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/symptoms-causes/syc-20356007
Eddington, K., Burgin, C., Silvia, P., Fallah, N., Majestic, C., & Kwapil, T. (2016). The Effects of Psychotherapy for Major Depressive Disorder on Daily Mood and Functioning: A Longitudinal Experience Sampling Study. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 41(2), 266-277. doi: 10.1007/s10608-016-9816-7
Felman, A. (2021). Mental health: Definition, common disorders, early signs, and more. Retrieved 1 June 2021, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/154543#early-signs
Friedrich, M. (2017). Depression Is the Leading Cause of Disability Around the World. JAMA, 317(15), 1517. doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.3826
Jakobsen, J., Gluud, C., & Kirsch, I. (2019). Should antidepressants be used for major depressive disorder? BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, 25(4), 130-130. doi: 10.1136/bmjebm-2019-111238
Mohamed, I., Ahmad, H., Hassaan, S., & Hassan, S. (2020). Assessment of anxiety and depression among substance use disorder patients: a case-control study. Middle East Current Psychiatry, 27(1). doi: 10.1186/s43045-020-00029-w
