Depression Flashcards
Depression as a word
Feeling sad or miserable, relatively common at all ages, often temporary, not necessarily part of a disorder
Depression as a psychological disorder
Two varieties in DSM 5:
Major Depressive Disorder
Persistent Depressive Disorder aka dysthymia
Major Depressive Disorder
Period of at least two weeks of depressed mood and significant impairment in functioning
Persistent Depressive Disorder
Low-grade depression which lasts for at least a year in children and 2 in adults
Major Depressive Disorder DSM Criteria (come back to recap)
5 or more of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning, at least one of the symptoms is either
- *Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by subjective report or observation by others (in kids/adolescents, irritable)
- *Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day
Other symptoms:
- Significant wait loss when dieting or wait gain (change of more than 5% of body weight in a month) (or in kids failure to make expected weight gain) or decrease/increase in appetite nearly every day
- Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day
- Psychomotor agitation or retardation (slow speech, shows up on neuropsych testing) nearly every day (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings)
- Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
- Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
- Diminished ability to think or concentrate, indecisiveness
- Recurrent thoughts of death, passive suicidal ideation or active
Distress or impairment
Not attributable to substance
Not explained by another disorder
Never manic or hypomanic episode
Major depressive disorder combinations
Over 1400 ways symptoms can be expressed
Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia) Criteria A
Depressed mood most of the day, more days than not, for at least two years (in kids and adolescents, one year)
Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia) Criteria B
Presence while depressed of two or more of the following:
- Poor appetite or overeating
- Insomnia or hypersomnia
- Low energy or fatigue
- Low self-esteem
- Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions
- Feelings of hopelessness
Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia) Criteria C
During 2 year period, individual has never been without symptoms in Criteria A and B for more than 2 months at a time
Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia) Criteria Rule Ours
No manic or hypomanic
Not better explained by psychotic disorder
Not bc of substance
Cause impairment
Double Depression
When a major depressive episode occurs in an already dysthymic individual, occurs in 75% of people with PDD
Depression in childhood
5% of kids 10-20% of adolescents experience major depression
For a long time believed children didn’t have cognitive or emotional level sufficient for depression
But they do experience depression, childhood depression is similar to adult depression
What depression looks like in preschool
- Somber, tearful, lack of exuberance
- Excessively clingy
- Irritable or bored for no apparent reason
- Sleep disruption
- Changes in appetite
What happens after very early depression
Children 3-5 w MDD are more likely to show recurrent symptoms of depression later in life
Depression as a chronic experience, not a phase
Childhood depression prevalence
Relatively uncommon in early childhood
More common in middle childhood
Spikes dramatically during transition to adolescence
Average age 14
High rate persists through early adulthood then tapers
Gender disparity in depression
In childhood, comparable
Profound difference- more for girls- during early adolescence and persists
By midpoint of puberty, females twice as likely to experience depression, this disparity persists into adulthood
Females also more likely to experience reccurrent episodes
Why are females more prone to depression?
- Hormones aren’t sufficient to explain this
- Stressful experiences- trauma (higher population level bc SA and DV) and chronic strain (expectations placed on you, inequities in life, sexual objectification, etc erode quality of life and change how women think about themselves and their place in society)- ties in with the HPA access
- Cognitive style- patterns of thinking that predispose people to depression, women’s marked more by rumination- a risk factor for depression
Rumination
Way of responding to situations by repetitively focusing on distress, its causes, and consequences
Rumination and depression
Indicator of future depression
Rumination exacerbates and worsens depression
In lab, inducing rumination increases negative affect, even in short term
Rumination and gender
Women more likely to ruminate
Why does the gender difference emerge in early adolescence?
Affective- time of heightened emotional reactivity
Biological- pubertal transition, developmental stage (neuroendocrine changes + hormonal changes) activates genetic vulnerabilities (ie predispositions to depression)
Cognitive- cognitive style such as rumination that exacerbates A and B
Co-rumination
Extensively and repetitively discussing and revisiting problems and negative emotions with friends, especially prevalent among adolescent girls