Roy (2005) refers to depression as a disorder of people’s mood that affects their emotions and how they feel. He believes that depression causes acute symptoms which can affect how people think, and go about daily acts like eating, working, sleeping amongst others. One becomes illegible for the diagnosis of depression only if these symptoms have been experienced for a period not less than two weeks (Wasserman, 2011). In this paper, I will discuss depression; how to collect data about depression, the method of analyzing the data collected, and finally the findings of depression from the data.
As Wasserman (2011) wrote, depression can exist in various forms under different circumstances for instance; dysthymia, perinatal depression, seasonal affective depression, and psychotic depression. Dysthymia which is also known as constant depressive disorder refers to when a person has a sad feeling for not less than two years. When a person is found with this kind of depression, he or she may have exhibited strong sadness together with less severe signs, though the symptoms must occur for not less than two years to be perceived constant depressive condition.
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In women, perinatal depression is a major challenge. As such women experience this kind of depression after they give birth. It has symptoms of anxiety and mild depressive, and it ends two weeks post delivery. Women who have this complication go through total depression when they are expectant and after delivery. As such these mothers feel severe sadness, exhaustion, and anxiety, which in turn affect their daily performances like household chores, and care for the babies.
Another depression is psychotic which occurs when people have serious depression alongside psychosis for example experiencing delusions (troubling untrue beliefs), or hallucinations (seeing and hearing saddening things which others can neither hear nor see). In seasonal affective disorder people have depressions for example during the period of winter as the natural sunlight reduces. It increases during the seasons of summer and spring. In winter, people tend to sleep a lot, gain weight and feel exhausted. Seasonal affective disorder is experienced at least once in every year.
Depression has a wide range of signs and symptoms as follows; irritability, fatigue, anxiety, slow operations, restlessness, constant sadness, loss of interest, lack of concentration, suicidal thoughts, loss of appetite, weight loss, and feelings of pessimism amongst others. As such, depression has risk factors if it prolongs. It can result from a mixture of biological, genetic, psychological, and environmental factors.
The problem of depression occurs despites age, however, it is common for adults. At present, depression is believed to occur in teenagers, although it happens with a lot of irritability and not low mood. Also, depression in older or midlife grown-ups can lead to other severe medical condition like cancer, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, and diabetes. Consequently, the types of drugs that are used to treat these conditions can lead to depression as their side effect.
Despite its effects on human life, depression can be treated. Its treatment is possible through medications, and psychotherapy or a mixture of the two. If these two do not work, then ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and other therapies for stimulating the brain may apply. In the treatment of depression antidepressant drugs are used to enhance the activity of the brain in controlling of mood. The antidepressant drugs often take two to four weeks before its effects can be detected. As such, symptoms like sleep, difficulties in concentrations, and appetite improve followed by an improvement in the mood. So, the conclusion of the effectiveness of antidepressant drugs can only be arrived at after some time and not as immediate as one starts using them.
On the other hand, psychotherapy is more of a form of counseling than drugs. It can also be referred to like the talk therapy and comprises of problem-solving therapy, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), and IPT (interpersonal therapy). Also, in the case where medication fails to reduce the depression, then ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) helps. Even though ECT has short-term side effects like confusion, memory loss, and disorientation, it is the fastest therapy for helping people with depression.
In cases where depression may tend to be resistant treatments, people should opt to take part in other interventions. Such interventions like physical activities during treatment of depression speeds up the impact of the treatment. As such peoples should be fit for instance by; being active and doing regular body exercises, educating themselves about depression, postponing some important decisions like marrying and changing work, spending time with people, setting rational objectives for themselves, amongst others.
My hypothesis in research about depression is; older adults stand high chances of suffering from depression and diseases that accompany it when compared to teenagers and mid adults. In this research, my population is the teenagers and adults within the community. In my research, I would use simple random sampling. According to Thompson (1992), simple random sampling applies when all individuals in the sample frame are available, and can be accessed easily. He indicates that in this method of sampling the population must be big for example the whole community that I am going to research on.
I will find my samples by a random selection from my sampling frame. In simple random sampling, I cannot be biased since all the people have an equal chance of being selected. On the same note, this method is independent because the selection of one individual does not affect the selection of another one. Consequently, I will collect my data through questionnaire and interviews with the selected samples (older adults, mid adults, and teenagers). In this way, I will fill my data forms about the feedback I find before analysis.
In my analysis, I will use the qualitative technique to know the reasons behind depression. Also, qualitative analysis help to know the opinions of my population concerning depression, and what drive them to fight the subject. I chose this method of analysis over others because it helps in providing knowledge about the trend of depression and the factors that lead to it. It gives me a broader perception of depression from the opinions so that I can find more information about the subject. Also, it offers rich data which gives me the in-depth presentation to evaluate why my population (adults) suffers depression more than others do and how depression is perceived.
In conclusion, people should avoid anything that causes depression because it can lead to other conditions which may result in loss of life like cancer, diabetes amongst others. Consequently, many adults who suffer from depression have high chances of developing cancer, and other diseases. Some of the ways of avoiding being depressed are through being active and concentrating in activities which cannot lead to stress for example scheduled physical activities. These activities not only relieve depression but also make the body fresh through excretion of waste materials when one sweats. According to my findings, depression is common in adults who do not spend much time in physical activities than teenagers and mid adults who do not take much time in sitting in offices where they work. Most teenagers do a lot of physical activities like playing football, running, and swimming. During these activities, the brain releases its stresses making one active all the time.
References
Roy, J. (2005). Depression . New York: Benchmark Books.
Thompson, S. (1992). Sampling . New York: Wiley.
Wasserman, D. (2011). Depression . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
