Overview
Depression is a health problem that has a negative effect on an individual’s daily life, especially in the contemporary world. Depression is not something one can easily recover from, such as stomach bug or cold. Most depressed people believe that they are just feeling sad, which will go away with time. They need to understand that depression is a constant feeling which can’t go away on its own. People who understand this may benefit from help and extra support. There are many causes of depression that vary from one person to another, and they include stressful life events, chemical imbalance, genetic vulnerability, health problems, medications, and faulty mood regulation. This paper will focus on the history and statistics of depression, its significance to health issues, the role of the nurses, and its relevance to the nursing practice.
History and statistics of depression
Traditionally, depression was considered by the public as a neuropsychiatric illness that had a fluctuating course such as episodes, disorder, relapse, recovery, recurrence, and remission. It was believed that the use of the symptom checklists might easily diagnose the disorder. Previous analysts claimed that the environment was the leading cause of behavioral reduction among individuals, which led to depression (Kanter, Weeks, & Landes, 2008) . Environmental events such as loss of job or divorce and deficits in social skills led to a low rate of response-contingent positive reinforcement (RCPR), which is associated with depression. An example of a depresses individual in one who refuses to get out of bed because of loss of a job. In the United States alone, more than 25 million people are depressed. Worldwide, there is an incidence of approximately 340 million cases of depression (Bartolomucci & Leopardi, 2009) . Depression leads to considerable costs for both the individual and organization in terms of treatment costs and work absenteeism. There are also many reports of suicide that are as a result of depression (Kanter, Weeks, & Landes, 2008) .
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Significance to health issues
Depression has been considered one of the significant contributors to global disease burden. It has been ranked as the fifth cause of chronic diseases worldwide. The high prevalence of the disorder has been associated with chronic diseases, disability, and suicide. The chronic conditions associated with depression include asthma, arthritis, diabetes mellitus, and angina. Many governments have recognized depression as a significant public health issue. Despite extensive research into depression and its causes, the actual mechanisms that cause distress have not been established. Therefore, current therapeutics are concerned with serendipitous discoveries instead of bench-to-bedside, targeted drug discovery.
Clinically efficient antidepressant drugs are used for treating depression, but the situation in most cases are considered far from ideal (Bartolomucci & Leopardi, 2009) . This is because of various shortcomings, such as the slow onset of action, high treatment-resistance rates, drug-drug interactions, and side effects, which facilitate the identification of all plausible agents. Clinical and preclinical scientists should join their efforts in understanding depression and the major causes of the condition. Therefore, understanding depression in it's biological phenomenological, and etiology characteristics in modern life will help improve its diagnosis and treatment, thus improving public health (Bartolomucci & Leopardi, 2009) .
Role of the nurse
Medical problems, such as cancer, hypertension, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, cause depression. These health conditions are the root cause of up to 15% of depressions. Depression leads to slower recovery for patients experiencing any of the medical problems. Therefore, the role of nurses when it comes to treating patients with depressive disorders is to monitor clinical progress, enhance treatment compliance, education of the patients, and promote social change. The nurses are expected to provide support for individuals with depressive disorders in order to improve care and increase the speed of recovery. The nurses should monitor the patients to ensure that the medical problems are brought to manageable levels in order to reduce depression among the affected individuals (Harvard Medical School, 2019) .
Relevance to nursing practice
Understanding depression is relevant for nursing practice because it helps them understand the level of care that should be provided to a patient to reduce depression. The nursing practice will understand the effects of various treatments on depressed individuals. They will also ensure that the patients take their medications as prescribed by the doctor. For example, the nurses will understand that the administration of SAGE-217 daily for 14 days will lead to reduced depressive symptoms on the15th day (Gunduz-Bruce, Riesenberg, Sankoh, & Paul, 2019) . Patients with depression disorder need to be provided with effective treatment, and this is why nurses should have a better understanding of the available treatments that helps in the management of depression. Some drugs may have side effects, and so patients should be closely monitored. For example, some medications may lead to symptoms such as malaise (Harvard Medical School, 2019) . This ensures that the patients receive the correct treatment at an appropriate place and time.
Conclusion
Traditionally, environmental events were considered the major causes of depression, but most recently, many other factors such as stressful life events, chemical imbalance, genetic vulnerability, health problems, medications, and faulty mood regulation were identified as other the causes of depression among individuals. Depression leads to various chronic diseases such as cancer, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and asthma. The role of nurses is to monitor the clinical progress of the patients to ensure depression is brought manageable levels. Understanding depression is relevant for the nursing practice because they will know the adequate care and treatment that should be provided to the patients.
References
Bartolomucci, A., & Leopardi, R. (2009). Stress and depression: preclinical research and clinical implications. PloS one, 4(1), e4265.
Gunduz-Bruce, H. S., Riesenberg, R., Sankoh, A. J., & Paul, S. M. (2019). Trial of SAGE-217 in patients with major depressive disorder. New England Journal of Medicine, 381(10), 903-911.
Harvard Medical School. (2019, June 24). What causes depression? The onset of depression more complex than a brain chemical imbalance . Retrieved November 25, 2019, from Havard Health Publishing: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-depression
Kanter, J. W., Weeks, C. E., & Landes, S. J. (2008). The nature of clinical depression: Symptoms, syndromes, and behavior analysis. The Behavior Analyst, 31(1), 1-21.
