Instead of looking at the causes of depression and treating it in our
minds as though depression were a fully understood condition, we might be better looking at it in more manageable
segments.
Exploring and understanding risk factors related to anxiety and depression can go a long way toward making
decisions about treatment and acceptance of a bout of major depression.
Also, as everyone is different, so to are the factors or causes of any one case of anxiety and
depression. For one person depression may have a side effect of increased sleep and fatigue, while another
person may respond to depression with opposite symptoms such as excess energy or
overdrive modes of behavior or irritability.
Risk factors related to depression:
Age
Though major depression typically occurs in people between the ages of 25 and 50, those over the age
of 65 are particularly vulnerable for various reasons.
Gender Women are about as twice as likely as men in the United States to be diagnosed and treated for
depression.
About 20-25% of women and 12% of men will experience a serious bout of depression at least one time
in their lifetimes. Among children, depression seems to happen in equal numbers of boys and girls. Then, as
the sexes reach adolescence, girls tend to become more depressed than boys do. This gender imbalance with
major depression continues into older age. It is believed that one of the reasons for older folk suffer this
debilitating disorder is the feeling of neglect and loneliness and also possibly caused by financial
worries.
Women are both historically more likely to seek treatment for depression and negative feelings that
may be occurring, such as feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness, though even more recent stats show an
increasing number of men seeking self improvement therapy sessions.
Marital Status
People who are unhappily married, separated or divorced have high rates of major
depression. The rates of major depression are considerably lower for those who are happily married probably due to
the fact that any problems are shared.
Risk factors do not ensure that someone will develop a depressive episode, and
everyone has the susceptibility of developing depression from time to time. Risk factors are just a way of saying
that of those that had the worst depression symptoms the listed features were present as well.
Editor
Anxiety Depression Symptoms
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