Sample Perception of Depression Paper
Depression or “Unipolar depression is another name for Major Depressive disorder. It is a mood disorder characterized by a depressed mood, a lack of interest in activities normally enjoyed, changes in weight and sleep, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness and guilt, difficulty concentrating and thoughts of death and suicide.” (Nancy Schimelpfening, 2007).
Just like any other pathological disease, it has risk factors, signs and symptoms, a natural course. Like any other disease it can be cured with proper medical and psychological therapy. Yet it is not perceived as such by the community. There is remarkable lack of awareness in the communities about depression even through statistics about the disease is staggering.
According to a statistic, every year, about 13 to 14 million people suffer from a given form of depressive disorder. The prevalence of depression in women is 7 million. It has also been observed that 2.5 percent of children and 8.3 percent of adolescents are depressed at any given time.
These rates are considerably higher than the figure of the past decades (Depression Statistics Information).
Perception of Depression
Yet it has been found that only 20 percent of depressed people receive adequate medical treatment (Depression Statistics Information).
This can be due to many reasons, though ignorance or lack of concern and awareness about the disease is the biggest suspect. In fact according to a report by US surgeon General, in the Hispanic community, it was stated less than 10 percent of the mentally ill people will ever approach a mental clinic (U.S. Department of Health).
This could be the result of a lack of concern on their part, or maybe because in the Hispanic community, they try nonmedical methods to treat a depressed person.
We must find out whether other communities also show this kind of lack of awareness and concern about depression. We suspect that minority communities either have little knowledge about the disease or if they do, they don’t perceive it to be a severe one.
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