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 Depression is a common mental disorder. In children and
adolescents it can interfere with the developmental trajectory
impairing educational experiences and close relationships. In turn,
this can have enduring consequences to self confidence, self
worth, and capacity to form good relationships.
The secondary effects of depression in
children and adolescents can persist into adult life and become
risk factors for subsequent depressions, as well as onsets of adult
personality disturbances and disorders. In particular there is the
much increased risk of self-harm and suicide. There are also
substantial economic costs both to the health services and wider
society.
Unfortunately, services are not good at
detecting depression in children and adolescents as reflected in
data provided by NICE (2005) and
Garber (2008). Even when we do detect
cases, the best treatments we have do not cure all cases (Dubicka et al, 2009; Goodyer et al, 2007; NICE, 2005).
This two-part module is focused on
highlighting the simple things, with reference to more complex
material; the point is that doing the simple things, doing them
very well and keeping on doing them very well is the foundation
upon which we can build services that will improve outcomes for the
future.
It is vitally important for the future, to
examine and investigate the issues at the cutting edge of the
psycho-biology of depression – but that is not the
primary focus of this module, for the reasons outlined.
This module is presented in two parts.
In Depression in children and
adolescents: Part 2, we examine case management with
specific reference to medication.
Start the
module
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