Major Depressive Disorder: Brief Background Of The Study (Research Paper Sample)

Depression in Adolescents
Ashley L. Hall
Trocaire College
Due:
PSY101-
PROF. Breski
Abstract
This paper focuses on investigating detailed information regarding depression in adolescents. It is primarily meant to evaluate how depression affects the lives of the adolescents, how can depression be avoided, signs and symptoms related to depression, and how to treat depression.
Furthermore, it is also targeting to have a critical reflection by having an interpretation of the findings brought about by the research. Therefore, it will evaluate the essence of studying the topic to the field of psychology as well as finding how depression affects human body mentally and physically.
Brief Background of the Study
Depression is one of the traumatic effects that affect the brains of human beings. Therefore, depression is a disease that causes a consistent feeling of sadness and loss of concern on other matters that concerns oneself. It is categorized to be either major depressive disorder or clinical depression. However, it is quite important for one to note that it can lead to the emergence of other emotional or physical problems.
Depression does not only involve the mind but also fosters severe impact on the body as well as thoughts. Therefore, depression has both physical and mental effects on the lives of human beings. In addition, different patients ’complain differently concerning signs and symptoms related to Major Depressive Disorder. For instance, patients may complain of a severe headache and extreme pain while another patient might complain of losing concentration and at the same time having loosed weight. Some patients might have different complaints on the same disease, some may complain of bad moods, laziness, bad tempers as well as rudeness. In general, those are some of the characteristics that encapsulate depression as one of the mental disease disorder.
Depression is also designated as one of the genetic diseases. For that reason, it can be passed down through genes hence can be transferred from parent to child unknowingly. More so, imbalance of chemical concentration in the brain can also lead to the emergence of depression as a disease.CITATION Pau13 \p 50 \l 1033 (Paul & Peter , 2013, p. 50).
Depression affects twenty percent of all Americans during their life experiences CITATION NIH15 \l 1033 (David, 2015)The available secondary literature suggests that depression is a common disease that is prone to affect anybody in the United States of America. Therefore, some of the individuals might not even be aware they suffer from depression disorder.
As aforementioned in the introductory part, depression exists in two categories. However, the major depression disorder is the most severe depression. It is described as a disease that showcases insistent feelings of sadness, despair, and less concern about daily activities that used to bring pleasure to the victim. Regardingthat, there are many signs and symptoms that may come along with the suffering of this disease, but mostly negative effects are the common symptom of depression. Nevertheless, many other symptoms can appear with the same characteristics. Fundamentally, depression can occur at any time during a lifetime but mostly has a tendency of occurring before a person reaches the age of fortiesCITATION NIH15 \l 1033 (David, 2015).
Research Findings
The available literature asserts that major depressive disorder is one of the most common depressions that affects youth during their teenage. The 12-month prevalence data for the major depression occurrences are from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health CITATION Pau13 \l 1033 (Paul & Peter , 2013).
The Graph Below Shows the Prevalence of Major Depression among US Adolescents (2015)
The research findings outline that in the year 2015, an estimated 3 million adolescents of ages between 12 and 17 in the United States were found to have at least one major depressive disorder. However, the number represents 14% of the United States population aged between 12 to 17 years old. Therefore, this outlines the evidence that adolescents are the most individuals who are rampantly affected by the much-known disease called Major Depressive Disorder CITATION Ham13 \p 129-136 \l 1033 (Hammen , 2013, pp. 129-136).
Depression in adolescents is one of the core threats that is currently disturbing the lives of developing children, more so the lives of the young adolescent. In connection to that, research findings outline that depression on adolescents comes along with parenting difficulties. Hammen asserts that parents who have their children in adolescent and these children suffer from major depression disorders are likely to face a hard time while bringing up their children. Parenting is an obligatory role of the guardian. However, when the teen experiences depression disorders, the parent is unable to take control of his child CITATION Ham13 \p 135 \l 1033 (Hammen , 2013, p. 135).
Conversely, there are some signs and symptoms that are related to themajor depressive disorder. Firstly, one is more likely to experience a persistent sadness, anxiety, feeling hopelessness, irritability, feeling guilty, fatigue, decreased energy, and worthless. Though those signs and symptoms might not come independently; they can be involved with other body sicknesses CITATION Pau13 \p 45-47 \l 1033 (Paul & Peter , 2013, pp. 45-47).
Lastly, major depressive disorder affects the brain structure of ahuman. With recurring depressions, this tends to reduce the size of your hippocampus. It is part of thebrain that is responsible for formations of emotions and memory. Therefore, a smaller hippocampus leads to a loss of emotions as well as behavioral functions CITATION Pau13 \l 1033 (Paul & Peter , 2013).
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Analysis/ Interpretation
Major depression disorder affects the lives of children in their teenage more so during adolescent. It is solely evident from the findings above that child in the USA are rampantly affected by the major depressive disorder. Therefore, from this research, it is solely clear that depression disorders can affect anybody. From the research, I comprehend that stress disorder can be passed down from a parent to the child through the interaction of genes. However, we ought to understand that there are some signs and symptoms that symbolize stress in patients. Lastly, this research teaches one to identify individuals coupled with major stress disorders.
Why is the Topic Important to the Field of Psychology?
Depression in adolescents is one of the important topics in the field of psychology. Firstly, this enables one to have a clear understanding of depression as a mental disorder disease. It gives the general understanding of the disease and the implications that it has on the lives of the teenagers. Besides that, studying this topic enhances one to have a ground foundation of psychology as it is responsible for understanding one’s brain. It enhances transparency when trying to understand the inner problems that one might be undergoing through.
Furthermore, teenagers are the assets of future, so their upbringing matters a lot. When the life of teenagers is not investigated keenly...