Depression In Canada

1830 Words8 Pages
Depression and mood disorders are diseases whose prevalence can be difficult to detect; it is not a disease with explicit and easily recognizable symptoms unlike other diseases, such as the flu. Fortunately, with increased awareness through community and school campaigns1, a new wave of understanding has encompassed our society providing the opportunity for many silent cases to become detectable. In fact, more campaigns have targeted today’s youth, and for good reason, youth (age 15- 24) have displayed high prevalence of mental health illness2. Fortunately, the increase in awareness has been a success since more universities have increased the promotion and or availability of counselling services and other venues of aid for mental illness3.…show more content…
We believe that students may turn to alcohol or drug use as a coping mechanism; this venture could lead to destructive paths such as addiction and other mental illness10, 11. At this point the likelihood of the graduate continuing their goals may decrease and the likelihood that they will remain unemployed increases. Since an increase in unemployment rate is undesirable not only for Ontario but all of Canada, it is critical for us to determine methods to prevent it; investing in improved mental health practices for depression is the answer12. First, we must discover the factors contributing to the prevalence of depression in the Canadian population; one of which may be the stressors experienced in students…show more content…
Most questions will be a dichotomous response (yes/no), while few will be graded. Students will be asked for any past history with depression or a mood disorder, those who have a history will be separated into another cohort in the system. Similarly, students will be asked to report of any bereavement within the last 2 months; those who have experienced bereavement will be separated and their responses will not count for those rounds. This is to reflect the change in the DSM-5 where bereavement exempts patients from being diagnosed as experiencing a depressive episode13. Next students will complete the PHQ9 test to assess the extent of the depressive symptoms/depression experienced. The PHQ9 is a screening tool currently used to detect depression and has been shown to be reliable and valid in a number of studies14. This tool is suited for this study because the scores from a PHQ9 test can be separated into levels of depressive severity; hence we can trend the increases or decreases in severity in students over the year. The following scores translate to the severity of depression, 0-4 is no depression, 5-9 is mild depression, 10-14 is moderate depression, 15-19 is moderately severe depression and 20-27 is severe depression. The difficulty with diagnosing
Open Document