André Tomlin shares his own experiences of being diagnosed with postnatal depression and wonders how we can improve screening for other fathers at risk during the perinatal period.
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Andrew Sommerlad reviews a new systematic review and meta-analysis and asks: Can two questions identify depression in older people?
This is the second in a new series of Mental Elf blogs produced in partnership with the British Journal of Psychiatry.
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Ian Anderson on a recent diagnostic accuracy meta-analysis, which shows that the Whooley questions for depression are effective at ruling out the condition, but that false positives are common.
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Depression in teenagers is a significant problem, with serious and potentially fatal consequences. Estimates of how many teenagers have depression at any one time vary between countries, but overall about 4-5% of mid to late teens worldwide are thought to experience clinical depression every year (Thapar et al, 2012). Much of the current knowledge of [read the full story…]
Roughly 33% of stroke sufferers also develop depression at some point. This may be an under-estimate of the problem, as depression is difficult to detect in people with poor physical health. If missed, depression can led to reduced quality of life, increased disability and a worsening of physical symptoms. There are a whole host of [read the full story…]
Life after cancer diagnosis and treatment is full of uncertainties for the patients and their caregivers. The possibility of cancer returning is hard to dismiss at least in the first few years after the end of treatment. Life has often changed in many imperceptible and subtle ways for people who have undergone cancer treatment, as [read the full story…]
While depression is the leading cause of disability for both males and females, the burden of depression is 50% higher for females. In fact, depression is the leading cause of disease burden for women in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2008). Research has shown that women with unidentified and untreated maternal depression [read the full story…]
