How to detect depression in young people?

Adolescence and early adulthood are very turbulent times in most people's lives.

It is a moment of transition in which we have to form our individual identity, discover what interests us in the workplace, socially and sexually and we also have to face family demands while claiming our independence and individuality.

Although most pass this period without major problem, others may experience it in such a way overwhelming and also experience events harmful to your mental health that end up developing a depression.

The importance of detecting depression in young people is crucial, since the nature of this disorder and that of adolescence result in many adjustment problems in an individual who is still growing. We reflect on this question below.

• Related article: "Major Depression: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment"

Characteristics of depression in young people

The younger years, especially the teenage years, can be a complicated and overwhelming time.. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is not easy for many young people, who try to find their place in the world while facing many pressures. Adolescents must meet the expectations of their parents, perform well academically, ensure that they have friends and are liked by everyone. while in early adulthood they have to look for a professional future, decide what to study or if going to work is more convenient for them. bill.

Mood swings in adolescence, as long as they are occasional, are normal for most young people. These mood swings are nothing more than the responses that young people have to circumstances that have not yet know how to drive and are still in the process of developing the skills and maturity necessary to be able to do them front. As they transition from adolescence to early adulthood, young people will acquire experience and perspective necessary to face those situations that years ago exceeded.

However, it sometimes happens that the demands of the environment are too high for adolescents to be able to comply with them, in addition to traumatic events or situations that negatively affect their health mental. It is estimated that one in five adolescents has a mental disorder, and about a third meet criteria for a diagnosis of depression.

Symptoms of depression in young people are not always easy to identify, because on many occasions they are camouflaged or confused with the behaviors of adolescence. Some early signs that the young person could suffer from depression are: irritability, fatigue, changes in sleep patterns, changes in eating behavior, social isolation and / or anger.

Depression during adolescence can significantly interfere with multiple important areas of life for the young person. The depressed adolescent will have trouble coping with academic, family, and social demands, in addition to the fact that they will have serious problems to be able to shape their own identity, since the depressive symptomatology in ages as early as the 12 to 18 age group is a huge obstacle to personal growth, self-concept and esteem. The young person may feel so bad and see himself as so unhelpful to society that he ends up committing suicide.

Taking all this into account, we can understand that the importance of detecting depression in young people is crucial, given that how much The sooner it is done, the sooner you can intervene on the particular case, improve your psychological well-being and prevent your disorder from agrave.

• You may be interested in: "The 3 stages of adolescence"

Symptoms of depression in adolescence

The most distinctive and defining feature of a major depressive episode is that it must be experienced for at least a two-week period. During this period, the patient must have felt very dejected, with deep sadness and a lack of interest in almost practically everything that he used to like. In the case of adolescents and young adults, the extreme irritability which, together with the other symptoms, represents a significant change in the functioning of the patient.

In addition to these symptoms, there must be at least four of those that appear in the following list:

• Go to and hostility
• Changes in eating behavior
• Changes in sleeping habits
• Fatigue and lack of energy
• Despair
• Feelings of guilt and feeling worthless
• Low academic performance
• Lack of motivation
• Trouble concentrating
• Easy and frequent crying
• Restlessness
• Agitation
• Body aches with no apparent physical cause
• Thoughts of death and suicide (with or without planning)

• Related article: "The 6 types of mood disorders"

Warning signs of suicidal behavior

The possibility that the young commit suicide it exists throughout the period of the major depressive episode. The statistics are chilling, pointing to that about 20% of young people between 14 and 18 years old have considered committing suicide at some point in a serious way10% have developed a plan to carry it out and between 5 and 10%, depending on the country, have carried out the attempt on more than one occasion.

Taking into account how serious this problem is and its final tragic potential, it is essential to detect depression in young people, both in the context of consultation and from the home itself. Therefore, we can look at the following signs of suicidal ideation among adolescents.

• Talk about suicide
• Write poems or stories about suicide
• Get rid of prized possessions
• Perform extremely risky behaviors
• Romanticize death
• Say goodbye to friends and family (in person, in notes, or on social media)
• Cryptic Social Media Posts Referencing Death

Treatment of depression in young people

It is essential to detect any other possible problem before proceeding with psychotherapy, with the intention of offering the best of therapies to the patient and thus improving her quality of life. There are multiple approaches and treatments to improve the mood of young patients with depression, but all of them can be included in the following three types of therapies.

1. Psychotherapy

The star psychological therapy to treat depression in adolescents is cognitive-behavioral therapy. This option is especially useful for cases of mild to moderate depression, caused by problems that are believed to be able to solve in the short term.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that individual patient-oriented psychotherapy is not limited to being a patient-therapist relationship. Beyond the sessions themselves with the psychologist or psychologist, it is essential to adopt a series of habits (learned in therapy) on a day-to-day basis, and in the same way, the involvement of the family is also a very important element that facilitates the good progress of the treatment, both the psychological and the doctor.

• You may be interested in: "What is psychotherapy? Main characteristics of this process "

2. Group therapy

Therapy groups can be very helpful for teens with depression. Through this type of therapy, adolescents connect with other young people who are going through the same thing and with whom they can share their problems and create support networks beyond those offered by family and close friends, in addition to finding models of reference and people to be inspired by and from which to obtain motivation to advance in the treatment.

• Related article: "Group therapy: history, types and phases2

3. Pharmacology

The most frequently used drugs to treat depression are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), antidepressants that may be beneficial for adolescents diagnosed with the disorder depressive disorder and in which cases psychotherapy alone does not seem to have a potent effect on their improvement.

It must be said, however, that taking these drugs should always be done under psychiatric supervision, and more if we take into account that research indicates that SSRIs increase suicidal thoughts in children and adolescents in the first weeks of treatment. In addition, in people with depression, cases of drug addiction are more common, so medical supervision when taking psychotropic drugs becomes even more essential.