Treat adolescent depression signs - professor
Thursday February 2nd, 2012
A British expert today calls for more to be done to identify and treat young people with low levels of depression.
Teenagers who show signs of becoming depressed are at high risk of developing serious illness later in life, according to Professor Anita Thapar from Cardiff University, Wales.
Writing in The Lancet, she says up to five per cent of teenagers suffer from clinical depression - and the problem is twice as common in girls as boys.
Many of these will have problems with school performance, behaviour and substance misuse, she says.
She says prevention should be targeted at high risk individuals rather than through universal screening. Teenagers found to be at risk will benefit from psychological therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and inter-personal therapy, she said.
She said last night: "Evidence for the long term benefits of psychological treatment or medication to rates of recurrence and for the effectiveness of non-specialist interventions is scarce.
"There is an urgent need for more public education about adolescent depression, and continued research to understand what the key components of prevention programmes and policies ought to be."
Tags: Infancy to Adolescence | Mental Health | UK News
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