Some 16% of adults in the United States have met the diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder at some point in their lives. Such rates have not really changed over the last few decades, according to studies -- but rates of treatment have risen dramatically.
Doctors say the wider recognition of depression as a chronic, recurring disease has helped people in need get necessary and helpful treatment. Better insurance coverage of mental health services and the explosion of new medications for depression since the introduction of Prozac in 1987 have helped fuel the rise in treatment rates.
And yet a wave of concern persists about overdiagnosis and overtreatment of depression. Has easy treatment in the form of a pill led to frivolous prescribing habits?
Here's a closer look at precisely who is getting treated for depression in America.
First, a definition: People suffering from clinical depression experience feelings of overwhelming sadness, guilt and worthlessness and don't find pleasure in their daily lives. They often sleep poorly and don't eat enough -- or they sleep more and eat more than usual. They may be unable to work or function in social settings. They may entertain suicidal thoughts. For this state of mind to be termed clinical depression, symptoms must persist for at least two weeks.
"We have all experienced something that resembles what someone with major depression has," says Dr. Benjamin Druss, a health policy researcher at Emory University in Atlanta. "But at the top end of the spectrum it's something that's very serious and debilitating. It's more unlike than like the daily ups and downs that we all have."
A complicated story
So how many of them get treated? In a 2005 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers assessed trends in prevalence and treatment of mental health (not just depression) from two large, national surveys -- 5,388 adult participants in 1990-92 and 4,319 in 2001-03.
In both time periods, about 30% of participants reported symptoms in the prior 12 months that met diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder.
In the early 1990s, 12.2% of all responders had received treatment for a mental disorder in the previous year; in the early 2000s, that percentage increased to 20.1%.
At first glance, this seems like an entirely good thing -- that more people with mental health problems were getting treatment as time went on.
