Depression
- Serious, treatable, very common medical illness
- Typified by sadness, sleeping too little or too much, eating too little or too much, and loss of interest in usually pleasurable activities
- Disease responsible for the most years lived with disability, according to the World Health Organization
- Divided into unipolar depression (only depressive episodes) and bipolar disorder (depressive episodes alternating with manic periods of elevated mood)
- Unipolar depression usually treated best with antidepressant medication plus psychotherapy
- Bipolar disorder treatment usually includes mood stabilizer
- Commonly used effective antidepressants: selective serotonin reuptake inhibiters (SSRIs), such as fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil), citalopram (Celexa), among others, as well as other compounds such as bupropion (Wellbutrin), venlafaxine (Effexor), duloxetine (Cymbalta), and amitriptyline (Elavil)
- Commonly used mood stabilizers, used for patients with bipolar disorder: lithium carbonate, divalproex sodium (Depakote), lamotrigine (Lamictal)
- Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT): effective treatment of refractory or suicidal depression
- Suicide: all-too-common result of depression
- National Hopeline Number: 1-800-SUICIDE or 1-800-784-2433
- Second leading cause of death of U.S. adolescents ages 15-19
- Sixth-leading cause of death in U.S. overall
- More common than homicide in U.S.
- More frequently attempted by women than by men in U.S.
- More frequently completed by men than by women in U.S.
- 90% of suicide attempts made by clinically depressed people
- Highest rate of successful suicide in U.S.: older white men
- National Hopeline Number: 1-800-SUICIDE or 1-800-784-2433