depression in high school essay

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Essays About Depression

Depression essay topic examples.

Explore topics like the impact of stigma on depression, compare it across age groups or in literature and media, describe the emotional journey of depression, discuss how education can help, and share personal stories related to it. These essay ideas offer a broad perspective on depression, making it easier to understand and engage with this important subject.

Argumentative Essays

Argumentative essays require you to analyze and present arguments related to depression. Here are some topic examples:

• 1. Argue whether mental health stigma contributes to the prevalence of depression in society.
• 2. Analyze the effectiveness of different treatment approaches for depression, such as therapy versus medication.

Example Introduction Paragraph for an Argumentative Essay: Depression is a pervasive mental health issue that affects millions of individuals worldwide. This essay delves into the complex relationship between mental health stigma and the prevalence of depression in society, examining the barriers to seeking help and the consequences of this stigma.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for an Argumentative Essay: In conclusion, the analysis of mental health stigma's impact on depression underscores the urgent need to challenge and dismantle the stereotypes surrounding mental health. As we reflect on the far-reaching consequences of stigma, we are called to create a society that fosters empathy, understanding, and open dialogue about mental health.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare and contrast essays enable you to examine similarities and differences within the context of depression. Consider these topics:

• 1. Compare and contrast the symptoms and risk factors of depression in adolescents and adults.
• 2. Analyze the similarities and differences between the portrayal of depression in literature and its depiction in modern media.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Essay: Depression manifests differently in various age groups and mediums of expression. This essay embarks on a journey to compare and contrast the symptoms and risk factors of depression in adolescents and adults, shedding light on the unique challenges faced by each demographic.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Essay: In conclusion, the comparison and contrast of depression in adolescents and adults highlight the importance of tailored interventions and support systems. As we contemplate the distinct challenges faced by these age groups, we are reminded of the need for age-appropriate mental health resources and strategies.

Descriptive Essays

Descriptive essays allow you to vividly depict aspects of depression, whether it's the experience of the individual or the societal impact. Here are some topic ideas:

• 1. Describe the emotional rollercoaster of living with depression, highlighting the highs and lows of the experience.
• 2. Paint a detailed portrait of the consequences of untreated depression on an individual's personal and professional life.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Descriptive Essay: Depression is a complex emotional journey that defies easy characterization. This essay embarks on a descriptive exploration of the emotional rollercoaster that individuals with depression experience, delving into the profound impact it has on their daily lives.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Descriptive Essay: In conclusion, the descriptive portrayal of the emotional rollercoaster of depression underscores the need for empathy and support for those grappling with this condition. Through this exploration, we are reminded of the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of compassionate understanding.

Persuasive Essays

Persuasive essays involve arguing a point of view related to depression. Consider these persuasive topics:

• 1. Persuade your readers that incorporating mental health education into the school curriculum can reduce the prevalence of depression among students.
• 2. Argue for or against the idea that employers should prioritize the mental well-being of their employees to combat workplace depression.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Persuasive Essay: The prevalence of depression underscores the urgent need for proactive measures to address mental health. This persuasive essay asserts that integrating mental health education into the school curriculum can significantly reduce the prevalence of depression among students, offering them the tools to navigate emotional challenges.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Persuasive Essay: In conclusion, the persuasive argument for mental health education in schools highlights the potential for early intervention and prevention. As we consider the well-being of future generations, we are called to prioritize mental health education as an essential component of a holistic education system.

Narrative Essays

Narrative essays offer you the opportunity to tell a story or share personal experiences related to depression. Explore these narrative essay topics:

• 1. Narrate a personal experience of overcoming depression or supporting a loved one through their journey.
• 2. Imagine yourself in a fictional scenario where you advocate for mental health awareness and destigmatization on a global scale.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Narrative Essay: Personal experiences with depression can be transformative and enlightening. This narrative essay delves into a personal journey of overcoming depression, highlighting the challenges faced, the support received, and the lessons learned along the way.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Narrative Essay: In conclusion, the narrative of my personal journey through depression reminds us of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of compassion and understanding. As we reflect on our own experiences, we are encouraged to share our stories and contribute to the ongoing conversation about mental health.

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Depression, known as major depressive disorder or clinical depression, is a psychological condition characterized by enduring feelings of sadness and a significant loss of interest in activities. It is a mood disorder that affects a person's emotional state, thoughts, behaviors, and overall well-being.

Its origin can be traced back to ancient civilizations, where melancholia was described as a state of sadness and melancholy. In the 19th century, depression began to be studied more systematically, and terms such as "melancholic depression" and "nervous breakdown" emerged. The understanding and classification of depression have evolved over time. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud and other psychoanalysts explored the role of unconscious conflicts in the development of depression. In the mid-20th century, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was established, providing a standardized criteria for diagnosing depressive disorders.

Biological Factors: Genetic predisposition plays a role in depression, as individuals with a family history of the disorder are at a higher risk. Psychological Factors: These may include a history of trauma or abuse, low self-esteem, pessimistic thinking patterns, and a tendency to ruminate on negative thoughts. Environmental Factors: Adverse life events, such as the loss of a loved one, financial difficulties, relationship problems, or chronic stress, can increase the risk of depression. Additionally, living in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area or lacking access to social support can be contributing factors. Health-related Factors: Chronic illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic pain, are associated with a higher risk of depression. Substance abuse and certain medications can also increase vulnerability to depression. Developmental Factors: Certain life stages, including adolescence and the postpartum period, bring about unique challenges and changes that can contribute to the development of depression.

Depression is characterized by a range of symptoms that affect an individual's emotional, cognitive, and physical well-being. These characteristics can vary in intensity and duration but generally include persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed. One prominent characteristic of depression is a noticeable change in mood, which can manifest as a constant feeling of sadness or emptiness. Individuals may also experience a significant decrease or increase in appetite, leading to weight loss or gain. Sleep disturbances, such as insomnia or excessive sleepiness, are common as well. Depression can impact cognitive functioning, causing difficulties in concentration, decision-making, and memory recall. Negative thoughts, self-criticism, and feelings of guilt or worthlessness are also common cognitive symptoms. Furthermore, physical symptoms may arise, including fatigue, low energy levels, and a general lack of motivation. Physical aches and pains, without an apparent medical cause, may also be present.

The treatment of depression typically involves a comprehensive approach that addresses both the physical and psychological aspects of the condition. It is important to note that the most effective treatment may vary for each individual, and a personalized approach is often necessary. One common form of treatment is psychotherapy, which involves talking to a mental health professional to explore and address the underlying causes and triggers of depression. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a widely used approach that helps individuals identify and change negative thought patterns and behaviors associated with depression. In some cases, medication may be prescribed to help manage depressive symptoms. Antidepressant medications work by balancing neurotransmitters in the brain that are associated with mood regulation. It is crucial to work closely with a healthcare provider to find the right medication and dosage that suits an individual's needs. Additionally, lifestyle changes can play a significant role in managing depression. Regular exercise, a balanced diet, sufficient sleep, and stress reduction techniques can all contribute to improving mood and overall well-being. In severe cases of depression, when other treatments have not been effective, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) may be considered. ECT involves administering controlled electric currents to the brain to induce a brief seizure, which can have a positive impact on depressive symptoms.

1. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression, making it one of the leading causes of disability globally. 2. Depression can affect people of all ages, including children and adolescents. In fact, the prevalence of depression in young people is increasing, with an estimated 3.3 million adolescents in the United States experiencing at least one major depressive episode in a year. 3. Research has shown that there is a strong link between depression and other physical health conditions. People with depression are more likely to experience chronic pain, cardiovascular diseases, and autoimmune disorders, among other medical conditions.

The topic of depression holds immense significance and should be explored through essays due to its widespread impact on individuals and society as a whole. Understanding and raising awareness about depression is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, depression affects a significant portion of the global population, making it a pressing public health issue. Exploring its causes, symptoms, and treatment options can contribute to better mental health outcomes and improved quality of life for individuals affected by this condition. Additionally, writing an essay about depression can help combat the stigma surrounding mental health. By promoting open discussions and providing accurate information, essays can challenge misconceptions and foster empathy and support for those experiencing depression. Furthermore, studying depression allows for a deeper examination of its complex nature, including its psychological, biological, and sociocultural factors. Lastly, essays on depression can highlight the importance of early detection and intervention, promoting timely help-seeking behaviors and reducing the burden of the condition on individuals and healthcare systems. By shedding light on this critical topic, essays have the potential to educate, inspire action, and contribute to the overall well-being of individuals and society.

1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing. 2. World Health Organization. (2017). Depression and other common mental disorders: Global health estimates. World Health Organization. 3. Kessler, R. C., Bromet, E. J., & Quinlan, J. (2013). The burden of mental disorders: Global perspectives from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. Cambridge University Press. 4. Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. Guilford Press. 5. Nierenberg, A. A., & DeCecco, L. M. (2001). Definitions and diagnosis of depression. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 62(Suppl 22), 5-9. 6. Greenberg, P. E., Fournier, A. A., Sisitsky, T., Pike, C. T., & Kessler, R. C. (2015). The economic burden of adults with major depressive disorder in the United States (2005 and 2010). Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 76(2), 155-162. 7. Cuijpers, P., Berking, M., Andersson, G., Quigley, L., Kleiboer, A., & Dobson, K. S. (2013). A meta-analysis of cognitive-behavioural therapy for adult depression, alone and in comparison with other treatments. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 58(7), 376-385. 8. Hirschfeld, R. M. A. (2014). The comorbidity of major depression and anxiety disorders: Recognition and management in primary care. Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 16(2), PCC.13r01611. 9. Rush, A. J., Trivedi, M. H., Wisniewski, S. R., Nierenberg, A. A., Stewart, J. W., Warden, D., ... & Fava, M. (2006). Acute and longer-term outcomes in depressed outpatients requiring one or several treatment steps: A STAR*D report. American Journal of Psychiatry, 163(11), 1905-1917. 10. Kendler, K. S., Kessler, R. C., Walters, E. E., MacLean, C., Neale, M. C., Heath, A. C., & Eaves, L. J. (1995). Stressful life events, genetic liability, and onset of an episode of major depression in women. American Journal of Psychiatry, 152(6), 833-842.

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Supporting Students with Depression in School

Mental health is a crucial component to overall health and well-being and mental health among children and adolescents continues to be a significant public health concern. According to a report in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 20.9% of adolescents aged 12–17 years had ever experienced a major depressive episode and in 2019, 36.7% of high school students reported feeling sad or hopeless and 18.8% seriously considered attempting suicide. It is essential to be able to notice the signs and symptoms of depression in children and adolescents and know best practices in support and intervention.

Depression in children and adolescents often presents differently than it does in adults. Feelings of sadness and loneliness are common, but moodiness or irritability may be more predominant expressions of these underlying feelings.

Additional symptoms may include:

• Loss of appetite or overeating
• Sleep disturbances (e.g., excessive sleeping, insomnia, or day-night reversal)
• Social withdrawal

Depression rates are soaring among children and adolescents and disproportionately among children of color, children who identify as LGBTQ, and children with special health care needs including cognitive and learning disabilities.

Depression can impact school attendance, school performance, and/or social interactions with peers and teachers. Depression negatively impacts a child’s development. Major depressive disorder in children is also associated with increased risk for the following:

• Suicidal ideations, attempts and completion
• Substance use
• Exposure to violence
• Driving while impaired
• Risky sexual behaviors and
• Running away from home

How Schools Can Help

Schools can play an important role in supporting the resilience and mental health of children and youth. This can be done through the same promotion and prevention strategies to support general health.

Connectedness (Mental Health Promotion and Illness Prevention) School staff can promote mental wellbeing by helping students feel connected to school and family through building strong relationships and bonds. Being connected to a community can help a child or teen feel cared for and valued. This sense of connectedness can promote mental health as well as prevent other outcomes such as substance use and suicide.

Depression Screenings (Mental Health Illness Prevention or Early Identification) School-based health centers or nurses can administer depression screenings which can be helpful early identification of symptoms and timely referrals for further in-depth evaluations with mental health professionals. Examples of depression screenings include:

• KADS (Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale)
• CDS (Columbia Depression Scale)
• CES-DS (Center for Epidemiological Studies- Depression Scale for Children)
• PHQ9 (Patient Health Questionnaire)

If a student is diagnosed with depression, school staff together with families and providers can help develop treatment or safety plans to help the student manage their depression symptoms.

Care Coordination Between Schools and the Pediatrician

Communication between school staff and the student’s pediatrician can help gather and share important information regarding behavioral concerns, withdrawal from social activities with friends or family, and changes in academic performance. This information together with appropriate screenings or evaluation can help assess the best individualized support or intervention needed.

Pediatrician’s Role

Pediatricians are key in supporting the mental health of youth experiencing or at risk of depression.

• AAP has guidelines for adolescent depression in primary care . These guidelines can be used to address practice preparation, identification, assessment, and initial management of adolescent depression in primary care settings as well as treatment and ongoing management.
• Pediatricians can educate, support and empower families for how navigate disclosing and addressing depression with schools from the clinical setting. Pediatricians can partner with a child’s behavioral health team, including their family, school, and treating behavioral health providers. Doing so can help broker communication to suggest and develop accommodations for a 504 disability accommodation plan and/or goals/services to be considered for an individualized education program (IEP) when and where appropriate.
• Pediatricians can utilize strategies to promote relational health in families and mitigate toxic stress ( REF: 2021 AAP Garner update policy statement ); this along with screening practices to identify children with increased risk factors can lead to earlier identification and treatment of depression and emotional dysregulation symptoms in children prior to manifestation of a major depressive disorder.

Helpful Resources

AAP: Guidelines for Adolescent Depression in Primary Care The Guidelines are to be used to address practice preparation, identification, assessment and initial management of adolescent depression in PC settings.

AAP: Mental Health Initiatives These resources are designed to inform pediatricians on how to support the mental health of children.

Preventing childhood toxic stress: partnering with families and communities to promote relational health This policy statement provides guidance on promotion of relational health to mitigate toxic stress in children.

CDC Adolescent and School Health: Mental Health This website provides valuable resources on how schools, parents and health providers can support teen mental health.

Resource for Schools

School and Classroom Depression Strategies (uaschools.org) This Fact Sheet contains strategies designed to address potential symptoms of student depression and should be used in consultation and collaboration with your school’s mental health personnel or as part of a larger intervention approach.

Mental Health America: Back to School: Recognizing Depression This resource provides information on how depression impacts school-aged children.

Psych 4 Schools: Depression This resource covers the impact of depression on children. The information provided here is an excerpt of an eBooklet that is meant to assist teachers and other practitioners working with children who are depressed and help to prevent or reduce depressive symptoms in students.

School-Based Approaches to Prevent Depression in Adolescents This review article examined school-based interventions to prevent the onset of depression, reduce the severity of depressive symptoms and enhance global functioning in adolescents. This article also provides strategies for school-based intervention programs.

Resources for Parents & Families

The following resources from American Academy of Pediatrics offer parent tips on teens’ Mental Health:

• AAP Mental Health Resources for Families
• Healthychildren.org: Adolescent Depression: What Parents can do to Help

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Does High School Cause Teen Depression?

Does school cause teen depression?

• Mental Health
• Depression in High School

Depression in high school has become increasingly prevalent over the past decade. But does school cause depression, or does it just make existing depression worse? School and mental health professionals are looking closely at this question as part of addressing today’s teen mental health crisis.

For some teens, the structure of school is helpful, particularly if they receive support at school for emotional or cognitive issues. But for other high school students, school can catalyze or worsen anxiety, depression, loneliness, poor self-esteem, and other psychological challenges. Meanwhile, US school districts are experiencing significant shortages in the number of school counselors available to provide mental health services.

Key Takeaways

• School-related stressors such as bullying and academic pressure can catalyze or contribute to adolescent depression.
• Because teens are dealing with so many physical and emotional changes during this period of development, it’s harder for them to cope with stress .
• Social media has magnified typical teen issues like loneliness and poor body image, leading to higher levels of depression in high school.
• Mental health treatment and loving support from parents can help teens heal from teen depression.

2023 Statistics on Depression in High School

Before we look more closely at the causes of depression in schools, let’s examine the most recent statistics on mental health in high school students. What percentage of kids in school are depressed? Research from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that more than 1 in 3 high school students has experienced poor mental health over the past few years. Furthermore, nearly half of students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

Statistics from Mental Health America (MHA) confirm the high rates of depression in high school. Here are MHA’s 2023 statistics on high school depression:

• 16 percent of US teens (ages 12 to 17)—more than 4 million adolescents—had at least one major depressive episode in 2022.
• In addition, 11.5 percent of US youth (over 2.7 million high school students) are experiencing major depressive disorder with severe impairment.
• 3 in 5 teens with depression received no mental health treatment. In some states, three-quarters of high school students with depression did not receive mental health services.
• Even teens who did access care rarely received consistent treatment. On average, fewer than 1 in 3 adolescents with severe depression received consistent care.

While awareness around mental health has grown enormously in recent years, that awareness doesn’t always translate into taking action . Teens need support from parents, school professionals, and other care providers and mentors in order to access treatment for depression in high school.

Moreover, research shows that 75 percent of all mental health conditions begin in adolescence and young adulthood. Hence, the high school and college years are a critical time for understanding and talking about mental health, and ensuring young people get the care they need so they can move into the next stage of life with tools for thriving and self-care.

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Can School Cause Depression?

In addition to genetics and brain structure, environmental factors—stress in particular—play a significant role in mental illnesses like teen depression. And for many adolescents, school is an ongoing source of stress. If a teen already has depression, the stress of school can make it worse. Or school-related stressors can eventually lead to depression.

Why does school cause depression and stress? Here are some of the emotional and psychological challenges teens face at school:

School pressure:  Many teens experience some degree of academic pressure. And an uncertain economy and tough competition for college and graduate school make that pressure worse. For some students, academic pressure triggers perfectionism , which can have a negative impact on teen well-being. Teen sports can also create pressure and expectations that contribute to high school depression.

Bullying:  Bullying is directly correlated with depression in high school and middle school. Recent research shows that bullying was a major factor in the increase in teen suicides when students returned to in-person school after online learning during the pandemic. LGBTQ, Asian, Black, and multiracial students report the highest levels of bullying and poor treatment in school, according to the CDC’s Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey.

Peer relationships:  For teens who struggle with social anxiety or are simply more shy or reserved, peer relationships can be a source of extreme stress. Furthermore, teens typically experience their first romantic relationships in high school or college. While this is an essential part of teen development, it can also be emotionally challenging. This is particularly true if teens don’t have guidance and support in navigating this new terrain.

Overscheduling: Between homework, extracurricular activities, socializing, and after-school jobs, high school students don’t have enough time to relax and replenish. This can lead to burnout , sleep deprivation , and not enough time spent with family.

Additional Factors in Adolescent Depression

What makes school stressors worse is that adolescents are already struggling with the challenges that come with maturing. A teen’s life isn’t easy. Adolescent development comes with changes in mood and biology that impact teen’s ability to cope. They’re figuring out their likes and dislikes, how to navigate the world outside their family, and issues of gender and sexual identity. Moreover, experts believe that today’s adolescents have lower resilience than in the past, which makes them more vulnerable to stress in school. Here are some of the reasons why depression in schools is so tough for teens to deal with.

Lack of coping skills:  Today’s teens are more protected than in the past. Parents try to shield them from  experiencing failure  and disappointment. Therefore, teens often have fewer chances to build resilience. Thus, they don’t learn how to cope with challenges.

A brain that’s still growing:  The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls self-regulation, is not fully developed in teens. Thus, they have a limited ability to exert control over their impulses. Consequently, this leads to teenage risk behaviors, such as substance abuse and unsafe sexual choices, which can negatively impact teen mental health.

Nature deficit disorder:  Today’s adolescents spend so much time doing homework and on screens that they don’t get outside nearly enough. Nature deficit disorder  is a phrase coined by Richard Louv in his 2005 book  Last Child in the Woods . It refers to the fact that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors, resulting in a wide range of behavioral and mental health problems, including depression.

The negative effects of social media: A large body of  research links teenagers’ use of social media with increased  teen depression . Social media seems to make typical adolescent concerns worse. There are more opportunities for teens to feel left out and compare themselves negatively with others. In addition, scrolling through social media is addictive , resulting in less time for activities that benefit teen mental health, like being outside, spending time with friends IRL, and expressing themselves creatively.

Let’s look more closely as some of these factors contributing to depression in high school.

Bullying and Adolescent Depression 

Research has found that bullying and depression in school are often related. Victims of bullying in school are at greater risk for depression and suicide. According to the CDC, high school students who are bullied are up to 320 percent likelier to die by suicide. When schools reopened after pandemic lockdowns, teen suicides increased by 12–18 percent as compared to pre-pandemic levels. In the study cited above, researchers concluded that bullying in school was the most likely cause for the rise in teen suicides.

Harmful bullying between middle school and high school students is perpetrated virtually as well. In fact, some research indicates that cyberbullying is worse than in-person bullying. A study by the US National Institutes of Health found that victims of cyberbullying showed more signs of depression than other bullying victims.

Moreover, any association with bullying behavior is a risk factor for depression. Children who bully others have an increased rate of depression in school years and afterward. One study found that children who are bullied and those who do the bullying have an increased risk of depressive disorders later in life.

How Does Social Media Impact Depression in High School?

Today’s teens face perennial adolescent issues, as well as issues that were unknown to past generations. Among the biggest contemporary problems for teens are technology in general, and social media in particular.

Social media  is a primary source of anxiety and pressure for adolescents. Teens become depressed when they compare themselves to their peers. Moreover, they feel they must uphold perfection on social media. Additionally, teen girls in particular often feel pressured by other students to share sexual images of themselves with male students, or to post such images online.

Ultimately, the focus on screens and social media causes damage to relationships, education, and extracurricular activities. Thus, it can contribute to teen depression, as well as  ADHD , self-harm, body image issues, anxiety, another mental illness.

Depression in College

Depression in high school isn’t treated, it can continue as teens graduate and go to college. Stress in college can be even more intense than in high school. College students are dealing with many new situations. They are often living independently for the first time, and might not be taking good care of their physical health. Furthermore, they are typically facing a new level of academic challenge. Moreover, they may be exposed to more drugs and alcohol than ever before.

Consequently, depression in college is not uncommon. College depression statistics from a 2022 Healthy Minds study show that students’ mental health has steadily declined since 2013. Researchers found that more than 60 percent of students during the 2020–2021 school year met the criteria for one or more mental health problems, such as major depression and anxiety disorder. This represented nearly a 50 percent increase from the data sets drawn from 2013.

10 Warning Signs of Adolescent Depression

It’s important for teens and their friends and family members to know how to recognize symptoms of adolescent depression and other teen mental health issues. Here are 10 of the most common depression symptoms.

• Avoidance of social situations and a loss of interest in favored activities
• Exhaustion, constant fatigue, and a generalized lack of energy
• Sense of despair, sadness, and hopelessness (sometimes escalating into suicidal thoughts)
• Slipping grades and general lack of motivation
• Unexplained aches and pains, headaches, stomach problems
• Hard time concentrating (particularly for teens who used to be focused)
• Feeling worthless, irritable, frustrated, or having an extreme case of low self-esteem
• Disturbed sleep patterns (taking naps during the day, insomnia at night)
• Changes in appetite and weight (including not eating on a regular basis or binge eating)
• Abusing alcohol or drugs to cope with the pain as a form of self-medication

6 Strategies for Warding Off Adolescent Depression 

1. spend time in nature.

Spending time in nature through outdoor therapy can improve mental health in a number of ways. For one, time outdoors has been shown to decrease levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. Moreover, being outside in nature is proven to reduce stress by lowering the stress-associated chemical cortisol.

2. Meditation and yoga

An increasing number of studies show that mindfulness meditation can help support teen mental health. Meditation encourages us to witness our emotions from a distance rather than getting caught up in them. A review study at Johns Hopkins found that meditation was just as effective as antidepressants in treating symptoms of anxiety and depression.

3. Exercise

Research shows that exercise combats depression by increasing the body’s production of endorphins. These are the brain’s “feel good” chemicals. Moreover, doing a physical activity you enjoy can increase feelings of mastery and self-confidence. Therefore, choose something you like to do so that exercise won’t feel like a chore.

4. Reframe stress

We can turn distress into eustress, which means positive stress. A Harvard Business School study several studies involving karaoke singing, public speaking, and math performance showed that people who reframed their anxiety as excitement performed better than those who told themselves to stay calm when feeling stressed. Think of stressful situations as opportunities to learn and find ways to cope with life’s challenges.

Whether or not you get enough sleep can have a big impact on mental health. Researchers have found that teens feel more depressed and anxious when they don’t get enough rest. In a study of nearly 28,000 high school students, scientists found that each hour of lost downtime was associated with a 38 percent increase in the risk of feeling sad or hopeless, and a 58 percent increase in suicide attempts.

6. Social support

Multiple studies  have shown that social relationships improve mental and physical health. The more support we have, the more resilient we are against depression. Find people you trust who will listen to you and make an effort to understand what you’re going through. Your support network can include family, peers, guidance counselors, and mentors. A mental health professional can also provide support.

Tips for Parents

Encourage self-care.  While your child is at home, help them instill healthy habits in terms of sleep, social support, and exercise . Hopefully, those habits will stick when the head off to college.

Listen carefully. Whether you’re talking with your teen at dinner or on the phone while they’re away at school, pay attention and watch for warning signs.

Don’t get angry.  Instead of punishing your teen if you find out they’ve been having behavior or mental health issues, respond with compassion and invite them to share what’s going on.

Make sure they get professional help.  If you’re concerned that your teen is depressed, have them talk to a school counselor, therapist, doctor, or another mental health professional with a specialization in adolescent psychiatry. It’s always better to address the problem before it gets worse.

Treatment for Depression in High School

Treatment for teen depression begins with a mental health evaluation by a trained professional. Specifically, this evaluation should take into account a student’s developmental and family history, school performance, and behaviors.

Once the evaluation is complete, teen depression can be addressed by a variety of therapeutic modalities:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps teens to identify and modify thought and behavior patterns, shifting them from the negative toward the positive.
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) helps teens acknowledge the unhealthy behaviors they are using to cope with deeper underlying issues, and develop ways to modify these behaviors. This behavioral modification helps aleviate depression in school.
• Psychoeducation groups educate parents and teens on how the brain works, so they can begin to change their thought processes and increase overall mental health.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) combines acceptance and mindfulness strategies with commitment and behavior-change strategies to increase psychological flexibility.
• Attachment-Based Family Therapy and other forms of family therapy strengthen the emotionally protective parent-child relationship while promoting adolescent autonomy.
• Adventure Therapy  helps heal adolescent depression by supporting teens to build self-esteem, learn lifelong skills, and form relationships with peers.

Treatment for High School Depression at Newport Academy

Our specialized teen treatment gets to the root of depressive symptoms, giving teens the healthy coping skills and authentic connection that improves emotional regulation and self-esteem. Our medical and clinical experts take a team approach, providing integrated care that addresses every aspect of an adolescent’s well-being. In addition, our family therapy component repairs ruptures in the parent-child relationship so teens feel safe turning to their parents for support when they are struggling.

At Newport Academy, we understand that sometimes the hardest part of seeking treatment for teen depression in school is  taking the first step . Once you take that step, we’ll be here for you all along the way—not only throughout the treatment process, but also afterward, through our discharge planning team and robust Alumni program . We look forward to supporting you and your family on the path to healing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is school the main cause of depression.

School is usually not the main cause of depression. However, it can be a factor in causing or increasing teen depression due to the various stressors that occur in school, including bullying, academic pressure, and challenging peer relationships.

What is the leading cause of depression in students?

Experts agree there are multiple causes of depression in high school, ranging from family history and genetics to external factors like social media, childhood trauma, and bullying.

What percentage of kids in school are depressed?

According to research from Mental Health America, 16 percent of US teens (ages 12 to 17) had at least one major depressive episode in 2022. In addition, 11.5 percent of US youth experienced severe depression.

Why do students struggle with mental health in school?

Academic pressure, social pressures, bullying, overscheduling, and difficult peer relationships are some of the school-related issues that can cause students to struggle with their mental health.

Can you get PTSD from school?

Middle and high school students who have experienced a traumatic event at school, such as bullying, assault, or a school shooting or other violent event, may develop PTSD if they don’t receive support and treatment.

JAMA Psychiatry. 2016 Feb;73(2):159-65.

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Learn how treatment reduced teen suicide risk by 75%. Get the study .

Why American Teens Are So Sad

Four forces are propelling the rising rates of depression among young people.

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The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.

The government survey of almost 8,000 high-school students, which was conducted in the first six months of 2021, found a great deal of variation in mental health among different groups. More than one in four girls reported that they had seriously contemplated attempting suicide during the pandemic, which was twice the rate of boys. Nearly half of LGBTQ teens said they had contemplated suicide during the pandemic, compared with 14 percent of their heterosexual peers. Sadness among white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups.

But the big picture is the same across all categories: Almost every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it’s happening all across the country. Since 2009, sadness and hopelessness have increased for every race; for straight teens and gay teens; for teens who say they’ve never had sex and for those who say they’ve had sex with males and/or females; for students in each year of high school; and for teens in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

So why is this happening?

I want to propose several answers to that question, along with one meta-explanation that ties them together. But before I start with that, I want to squash a few tempting fallacies.

The first fallacy is that we can chalk this all up to teens behaving badly. In fact, lots of self-reported teen behaviors are moving in a positive direction . Since the 1990s, drinking-and-driving is down almost 50 percent. School fights are down 50 percent. Sex before 13 is down more than 70 percent. School bullying is down. And LGBTQ acceptance is up.

The second fallacy is that teens have always been moody, and sadness looks like it is rising only because people are more willing to talk about it. Objective measures of anxiety and depression— such as eating disorders , self-harming behavior, and teen suicides —are sharply up over the past decade. “Across the country we have witnessed dramatic increases in Emergency Department visits for all mental health emergencies including suspected suicide attempts,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said in October. Today’s teenagers are more comfortable talking about mental health, but rising youth sadness is no illusion.

The third fallacy is that today’s mental-health crisis was principally caused by the pandemic and an overreaction to COVID. “Rising teenage sadness isn’t a new trend, but rather the acceleration and broadening of a trend that clearly started before the pandemic,” Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University, told me. But he added: “We shouldn’t ignore the pandemic, either. The fact that COVID seems to have made teen mental health worse offers clues about what’s really driving the rise in sadness.”

Here are four forces propelling that increase.

1. Social-media use

Five years ago, the psychologist Jean Twenge wrote an influential and controversial feature in The Atlantic titled “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” based on her book iGen . Around 2012, Twenge wrote, she had noticed that teen sadness and anxiety began to steadily rise in the U.S. and other rich developed countries. She looked for explanations and realized that 2012 was precisely when the share of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent and mobile social-media use spiked.

In the past few years, scientists have disputed the idea that social-media use itself makes teenagers miserable. “There’s been absolutely hundreds of [social-media and mental-health] studies, almost all showing pretty small effects,” Jeff Hancock, a behavioral psychologist at Stanford University who has conducted a meta-analysis of 226 such studies, told The New York Times recently.

But I think Twenge’s strongest point is misunderstood. Social media isn’t like rat poison, which is toxic to almost everyone. It’s more like alcohol : a mildly addictive substance that can enhance social situations but can also lead to dependency and depression among a minority of users.

This is very close to the conclusion reached by none other than Instagram. The company’s internal research from 2020 found that, while most users had a positive relationship with the app, one-third of teen girls said “Instagram made them feel worse,” even though these girls “feel unable to stop themselves” from logging on. And if you don’t believe a company owned by Facebook , believe a big new study from Cambridge University , in which researchers looked at 84,000 people of all ages and found that social media was strongly associated with worse mental health during certain sensitive life periods, including for girls ages 11 to 13.

Why would social media affect teenage mental health in this way? One explanation is that teenagers (and teenage girls in particular) are uniquely sensitive to the judgment of friends, teachers, and the digital crowd. As I’ve written , social media seems to hijack this keen peer sensitivity and drive obsessive thinking about body image and popularity. The problem isn’t just that social media fuels anxiety but also that—as we’ll see—it makes it harder for today’s young people to cope with the pressures of growing up.

2. Sociality is down

Both Steinberg and Twenge stress that the biggest problem with social media might be not social media itself, but rather the activities that it replaces.

“I tell parents all the time that if Instagram is merely displacing TV, I’m not concerned about it,” Steinberg told me. But today’s teens spend more than five hours daily on social media, and that habit seems to be displacing quite a lot of beneficial activity. The share of high-school students who got eight or more hours of sleep declined 30 percent from 2007 to 2019. Compared with their counterparts in the 2000s, today’s teens are less likely to go out with their friends , get their driver’s license , or play youth sports .

The pandemic and the closure of schools likely exacerbated teen loneliness and sadness. A 2020 survey from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education found that loneliness spiked in the first year of the pandemic for everyone, but it rose most significantly for young people. “It’s well established that what protects teens from stress is close social relationships,” Steinberg said. “When kids can’t go to school to see their friends and peers and mentors, that social isolation could lead to sadness and depression, particularly for those predisposed to feeling sad or depressed.”

This is important to say clearly: Aloneness isn’t the same as loneliness, and loneliness isn’t the same as depression. But more aloneness (including from heavy smartphone use) and more loneliness (including from school closures) might have combined to push up sadness among teenagers who need sociality to protect them from the pressures of a stressful world.

3. The world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors

Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist and author, told me that no single factor can account for the rise of teenage sadness. But she believes a part of the answer is that the world has become more stressful. Or, at least, teenagers’ perception of the world seems to be causing them more stress.

“In the last decade teenagers have become increasingly stressed by concerns about gun violence, climate change, and the political environment ,” she wrote in an email. “Increased stress among young people is linked to increasing levels of sadness. Girls, more than boys, are socialized to internalize distress, meaning that they tend to collapse in on themselves by becoming depressed or anxious.”

Fears about finances, climate change, and viral pandemics are smashing into local concerns about social approval and setting oneself up for success. “I think of it as a pile-on effect,” Steinberg said. “We’re coming out of the pandemic, and then suddenly Russia goes to war. Every day, it feels like there’s something else. It creates a very gloomy narrative about the world.”

This sense of doom doesn’t just come from teenagers. It comes from us , the news media, and from the social-media channels through which our work is distributed. News sources have never been more abundant, or more accessible. But journalism also has a famous bad-news bias, which flows from an unfortunate but accurate understanding that negativity generally gets more attention . When we plug our brain into a news feed, we are usually choosing to deluge ourselves with negative representations of reality. A well-known 2019 experiment randomly forced people to stop using Facebook for four weeks before a midterm election. The study found that those who logged off spent more time hanging out with family and friends, consistent with the idea that social-media use displaces pro-social behaviors. It also found that deactivating Facebook “reduced factual news knowledge” while “increasing subjective well-being.” We cannot rule out the possibility that teens are sad about the world, not only because the world contains sadness, but also because young people have 24/7 access to sites that are constantly telling them they should be depressed about it.

4. Modern parenting strategies

In the past 40 years, American parents—especially those with a college degree— have nearly doubled the amount of time they spend coaching, chauffeuring, tutoring, and otherwise helping their teenage children. The economist Valerie Ramey has labeled this the “ rug rat race .” High-income parents in particular are spending much more time preparing their kids for a competitive college admissions process. When I interviewed Ramey about her work in 2019, she told me that she “couldn’t believe the amount of pressure our friends were putting on their kids to get ready for college.”

The “rug rat race” is an upper-class phenomenon that can’t explain a generalized increase in teenage sadness. But it could well explain part of what’s going on. And in the 2020 Atlantic feature “What Happened to American Childhood?,” Kate Julian described a related phenomenon that affects families a bit more broadly: Anxious parents, in seeking to insulate their children from risk and danger, are unintentionally transferring their anxiety to their kids.

I want to pull out two points from Julian’s complex essay. First, children are growing up slower than they used to. Today’s children are less likely to drive, get a summer job, or be asked to do chores. The problem isn’t that kids are lazy (homework time has risen), or that scrubbing dishes magically dispels anxiety disorders. Rather, Julian wrote, these activities “provide children with two very important things”: tolerating discomfort and having a sense of personal competence.

Second, researchers have noted a broad increase in an “accommodative” parenting style. If a girl is afraid of dogs, an “accommodation” would be keeping her away from every friend’s house with a dog, or if a boy won’t eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years ( an actual story from the article ). These behaviors come from love. But part of growing up is learning how to release negative emotions in the face of inevitable stress. If kids never figure out how to do that, they’re more likely to experience severe anxiety as teenagers.

Julian highlighted a new treatment out of Yale University’s Child Study Center called SPACE, or Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. Put simply, SPACE forces parents to be less accommodating. If the girl is afraid of dogs, encourage her to play with young puppies. If the boy hates vegetables, caramelize the hell out of some broccoli. This sort of advice is infinitely easier to type than to put into practice. But folding a bit of exposure therapy into modern parenting and childhood might help teenagers grapple with a complex and stressful world.

O ther explanations don’t fit neatly into the above categories. Maybe drugs are a big factor: One study found that a sixth of the increase in teen suicides was associated with parental opioid addiction. Maybe the authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt are right that college campuses and internet culture have come to celebrate fragility. Maybe political polarization is fueling anxiety, not only by creating mutual hatred but also by encouraging people to reject opposing views, which over time reduces their capacity to handle cognitive dissonance in a confusing world.

The truth is I’m not satisfied by any of the above explanations, on their own. But I see no reason to keep them alone. They interact, amplify, and compound. And together they paint a powerful picture.

The world is overwhelming, and an inescapably negative news cycle creates an atmosphere of existential gloom, not just for teens but also for their moms and dads. The more overwhelming the world feels to parents, the more they may try to bubble-wrap their kids with accommodations. Over time, this protective parenting style deprives children of the emotional resilience they need to handle the world’s stresses. Childhood becomes more insular: Time spent with friends, driving, dating, and working summer jobs all decline. College pressures skyrocket. Outwardly, teens are growing up slower; but online, they’re growing up faster. The internet exposes teenagers not only to supportive friendships but also to bullying, threats, despairing conversations about mental health, and a slurry of unsolvable global problems—a carnival of negativity. Social media places in every teen’s pocket a quantified battle royal for scarce popularity that can displace hours of sleep and makes many teens, especially girls, feel worse about their body and life. Amplify these existing trends with a global pandemic and an unprecedented period of social isolation, and suddenly, the remarkable rise of teenage sadness doesn’t feel all that mysterious, does it?

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

Essays About Depression: Top 8 Examples Plus Prompts

Many people deal with mental health issues throughout their lives; if you are writing essays about depression, you can read essay examples to get started.

An occasional feeling of sadness is something that everyone experiences from time to time. Still, a persistent loss of interest, depressed mood, changes in energy levels, and sleeping problems can indicate mental illness. Thankfully, antidepressant medications, therapy, and other types of treatment can be largely helpful for people living with depression.

People suffering from depression or other mood disorders must work closely with a mental health professional to get the support they need to recover. While family members and other loved ones can help move forward after a depressive episode, it’s also important that people who have suffered from major depressive disorder work with a medical professional to get treatment for both the mental and physical problems that can accompany depression.

If you are writing an essay about depression, here are 8 essay examples to help you write an insightful essay. For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

• 1. My Best Friend Saved Me When I Attempted Suicide, But I Didn’t Save Her by Drusilla Moorhouse
• 2. How can I complain? by James Blake
• 3. What it’s like living with depression: A personal essay by Nadine Dirks
• 4. I Have Depression, and I’m Proof that You Never Know the Battle Someone is Waging Inside by Jac Gochoco
• 5. Essay: How I Survived Depression by Cameron Stout
• 6. I Can’t Get Out of My Sweat Pants: An Essay on Depression by Marisa McPeck-Stringham
• 7. This is what depression feels like by Courtenay Harris Bond

8. Opening Up About My Struggle with Recurring Depression by Nora Super

1. what is depression, 2. how is depression diagnosed, 3. causes of depression, 4. different types of depression, 5. who is at risk of depression, 6. can social media cause depression, 7. can anyone experience depression, the final word on essays about depression, is depression common, what are the most effective treatments for depression, top 8 examples, 1.  my best friend saved me when i attempted suicide, but i didn’t save her  by drusilla moorhouse.

“Just three months earlier, I had been a patient in another medical facility: a mental hospital. My best friend, Denise, had killed herself on Christmas, and days after the funeral, I told my mom that I wanted to die. I couldn’t forgive myself for the role I’d played in Denise’s death: Not only did I fail to save her, but I’m fairly certain I gave her the idea.”

Moorhouse makes painstaking personal confessions throughout this essay on depression, taking the reader along on the roller coaster of ups and downs that come with suicide attempts, dealing with the death of a loved one, and the difficulty of making it through major depressive disorder.

2.  How can I complain?  by James Blake

“I wanted people to know how I felt, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to tell them. I have gone into a bit of detail here not to make anyone feel sorry for me but to show how a privileged, relatively rich-and-famous-enough-for-zero-pity white man could become depressed against all societal expectations and allowances. If I can be writing this, clearly it isn’t only oppression that causes depression; for me it was largely repression.”

Musician James Blake shares his experience with depression and talks about his struggles with trying to grow up while dealing with existential crises just as he began to hit the peak of his fame. Blake talks about how he experienced guilt and shame around the idea that he had it all on the outside—and so many people deal with issues that he felt were larger than his.

3.  What it’s like living with depression: A personal essay   by Nadine Dirks

“In my early adulthood, I started to feel withdrawn, down, unmotivated, and constantly sad. What initially seemed like an off-day turned into weeks of painful feelings that seemed they would never let up. It was difficult to enjoy life with other people my age. Depression made typical, everyday tasks—like brushing my teeth—seem monumental. It felt like an invisible chain, keeping me in bed.”

Dirks shares her experience with depression and the struggle she faced to find treatment for mental health issues as a Black woman. Dirks discusses how even though she knew something about her mental health wasn’t quite right, she still struggled to get the diagnosis she needed to move forward and receive proper medical and psychological care.

4.  I Have Depression, and I’m Proof that You Never Know the Battle Someone is Waging Inside  by Jac Gochoco

“A few years later, at the age of 20, my smile had fallen, and I had given up. The thought of waking up the next morning was too much for me to handle. I was no longer anxious or sad; instead, I felt numb, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse. I called my dad, who lived across the country, and for the first time in my life, I told him everything. It was too late, though. I was not calling for help. I was calling to say goodbye.”

Gochoco describes the war that so many people with depression go through—trying to put on a brave face and a positive public persona while battling demons on the inside. The Olympic weightlifting coach and yoga instructor now work to share the importance of mental health with others.

5.  Essay: How I Survived Depression   by Cameron Stout

“In 1993, I saw a psychiatrist who prescribed an antidepressant. Within two months, the medication slowly gained traction. As the gray sludge of sadness and apathy washed away, I emerged from a spiral of impending tragedy. I helped raise two wonderful children, built a successful securities-litigation practice, and became an accomplished cyclist. I began to take my mental wellness for granted. “

Princeton alum Cameron Stout shared his experience with depression with his fellow Tigers in Princeton’s alumni magazine, proving that even the most brilliant and successful among us can be rendered powerless by a chemical imbalance. Stout shares his experience with treatment and how working with mental health professionals helped him to come out on the other side of depression.

6.  I Can’t Get Out of My Sweat Pants: An Essay on Depression  by Marisa McPeck-Stringham

“Sometimes, when the depression got really bad in junior high, I would come straight home from school and change into my pajamas. My dad caught on, and he said something to me at dinner time about being in my pajamas several days in a row way before bedtime. I learned it was better not to change into my pajamas until bedtime. People who are depressed like to hide their problematic behaviors because they are so ashamed of the way they feel. I was very ashamed and yet I didn’t have the words or life experience to voice what I was going through.”

McPeck-Stringham discusses her experience with depression and an eating disorder at a young age; both brought on by struggles to adjust to major life changes. The author experienced depression again in her adult life, and thankfully, she was able to fight through the illness using tried-and-true methods until she regained her mental health.

7.  This is what depression feels like  by Courtenay Harris Bond

“The smallest tasks seem insurmountable: paying a cell phone bill, lining up a household repair. Sometimes just taking a shower or arranging a play date feels like more than I can manage. My children’s squabbles make me want to scratch the walls. I want to claw out of my own skin. I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is a solitary candle about to blow out at any moment. At the same time, I feel like the pain will never end.”

Bond does an excellent job of helping readers understand just how difficult depression can be, even for people who have never been through the difficulty of mental illness. Bond states that no matter what people believe the cause to be—chemical imbalance, childhood issues, a combination of the two—depression can make it nearly impossible to function.

“Once again, I spiraled downward. I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t work. I had thoughts of harming myself. This time, my husband urged me to start ECT much sooner in the cycle, and once again, it worked. Within a matter of weeks I was back at work, pretending nothing had happened. I kept pushing myself harder to show everyone that I was “normal.” I thought I had a pattern: I would function at a high level for many years, and then my depression would be triggered by a significant event. I thought I’d be healthy for another ten years.”

Super shares her experience with electroconvulsive therapy and how her depression recurred with a major life event despite several years of solid mental health. Thankfully, Super was able to recognize her symptoms and get help sooner rather than later.

7 Writing Prompts on Essays About Depression

When writing essays on depression, it can be challenging to think of essay ideas and questions. Here are six essay topics about depression that you can use in your essay.

Depression can be difficult to define and understand. Discuss the definition of depression, and delve into the signs, symptoms, and possible causes of this mental illness. Depression can result from trauma or personal circumstances, but it can also be a health condition due to genetics. In your essay, look at how depression can be spotted and how it can affect your day-to-day life. 

Depression diagnosis can be complicated; this essay topic will be interesting as you can look at the different aspects considered in a diagnosis. While a certain lab test can be conducted, depression can also be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. Research the different ways depression can be diagnosed and discuss the benefits of receiving a diagnosis in this essay.

There are many possible causes of depression; this essay discusses how depression can occur. Possible causes of depression can include trauma, grief, anxiety disorders, and some physical health conditions. Look at each cause and discuss how they can manifest as depression.

There are many different types of depression. This essay topic will investigate each type of depression and its symptoms and causes. Depression symptoms can vary in severity, depending on what is causing it. For example, depression can be linked to medical conditions such as bipolar disorder. This is a different type of depression than depression caused by grief. Discuss the details of the different types of depression and draw comparisons and similarities between them.

Certain genetic traits, socio-economic circumstances, or age can make people more prone to experiencing symptoms of depression. Depression is becoming more and more common amongst young adults and teenagers. Discuss the different groups at risk of experiencing depression and how their circumstances contribute to this risk.

Social media poses many challenges to today’s youth, such as unrealistic beauty standards, cyber-bullying, and only seeing the “highlights” of someone’s life. Can social media cause depression in teens? Delve into the negative impacts of social media when writing this essay. You could compare the positive and negative sides of social media and discuss whether social media causes mental health issues amongst young adults and teenagers.

This essay question poses the question, “can anyone experience depression?” Although those in lower-income households may be prone to experiencing depression, can the rich and famous also experience depression? This essay discusses whether the privileged and wealthy can experience their possible causes. This is a great argumentative essay topic, discuss both sides of this question and draw a conclusion with your final thoughts.

When writing about depression, it is important to study examples of essays to make a compelling essay. You can also use your own research by conducting interviews or pulling information from other sources. As this is a sensitive topic, it is important to approach it with care; you can also write about your own experiences with mental health issues.

Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

FAQs On Essays About Depression

According to the World Health Organization, about 5% of people under 60 live with depression. The rate is slightly higher—around 6%—for people over 60. Depression can strike at any age, and it’s important that people who are experiencing symptoms of depression receive treatment, no matter their age. 

Suppose you’re living with depression or are experiencing some of the symptoms of depression. In that case, it’s important to work closely with your doctor or another healthcare professional to develop a treatment plan that works for you. A combination of antidepressant medication and cognitive behavioral therapy is a good fit for many people, but this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone who suffers from depression. Be sure to check in with your doctor regularly to ensure that you’re making progress toward improving your mental health.

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

Amanda has an M.S.Ed degree from the University of Pennsylvania in School and Mental Health Counseling and is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer. She has experience writing magazine articles, newspaper articles, SEO-friendly web copy, and blog posts.

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• Patient Care & Health Information
• Diseases & Conditions
• Teen depression

Teen depression is a serious mental health problem that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest in activities. It affects how your teenager thinks, feels and behaves, and it can cause emotional, functional and physical problems. Although depression can occur at any time in life, symptoms may be different between teens and adults.

Issues such as peer pressure, academic expectations and changing bodies can bring a lot of ups and downs for teens. But for some teens, the lows are more than just temporary feelings — they're a symptom of depression.

Teen depression isn't a weakness or something that can be overcome with willpower — it can have serious consequences and requires long-term treatment. For most teens, depression symptoms ease with treatment such as medication and psychological counseling.

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Teen depression signs and symptoms include a change from the teenager's previous attitude and behavior that can cause significant distress and problems at school or home, in social activities, or in other areas of life.

Depression symptoms can vary in severity, but changes in your teen's emotions and behavior may include the examples below.

Emotional changes

Be alert for emotional changes, such as:

• Feelings of sadness, which can include crying spells for no apparent reason
• Frustration or feelings of anger, even over small matters
• Feeling hopeless or empty
• Irritable or annoyed mood
• Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities
• Loss of interest in, or conflict with, family and friends
• Low self-esteem
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
• Fixation on past failures or exaggerated self-blame or self-criticism
• Extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure, and the need for excessive reassurance
• Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things
• Ongoing sense that life and the future are grim and bleak
• Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide

Behavioral changes

Watch for changes in behavior, such as:

• Tiredness and loss of energy
• Insomnia or sleeping too much
• Changes in appetite — decreased appetite and weight loss, or increased cravings for food and weight gain
• Use of alcohol or drugs
• Agitation or restlessness — for example, pacing, hand-wringing or an inability to sit still
• Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements
• Frequent complaints of unexplained body aches and headaches, which may include frequent visits to the school nurse
• Social isolation
• Poor school performance or frequent absences from school
• Less attention to personal hygiene or appearance
• Angry outbursts, disruptive or risky behavior, or other acting-out behaviors
• Self-harm — for example, cutting or burning
• Making a suicide plan or a suicide attempt

What's normal and what's not

It can be difficult to tell the difference between ups and downs that are just part of being a teenager and teen depression. Talk with your teen. Try to determine whether he or she seems capable of managing challenging feelings, or if life seems overwhelming.

When to see a doctor

If depression signs and symptoms continue, begin to interfere in your teen's life, or cause you to have concerns about suicide or your teen's safety, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional trained to work with adolescents. Your teen's family doctor or pediatrician is a good place to start. Or your teen's school may recommend someone.

Depression symptoms likely won't get better on their own — and they may get worse or lead to other problems if untreated. Depressed teenagers may be at risk of suicide, even if signs and symptoms don't appear to be severe.

If you're a teen and you think you may be depressed — or you have a friend who may be depressed — don't wait to get help. Talk to a health care provider such as your doctor or school nurse. Share your concerns with a parent, a close friend, a spiritual leader, a teacher or someone else you trust.

Suicide is often associated with depression. If you think you may hurt yourself or attempt suicide, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.

Also consider these options if you're having suicidal thoughts:

• Call your mental health professional.
• In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline , available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or use the Lifeline Chat . The Spanish language phone line is 1-888-628-9454 (toll-free). Services are free and confidential.
• Or contact a crisis service for teenagers in the U.S. called TXT 4 HELP : Text the word "safe" and your current location to 4HELP (44357) for immediate help, with the option for interactive texting.
• Seek help from your primary care doctor or other health care provider.
• Reach out to a close friend or loved one.
• Contact a minister, spiritual leader or someone else in your faith community.

If a loved one or friend is in danger of attempting suicide or has made an attempt:

• Make sure someone stays with that person.
• Call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.
• Or, if you can do so safely, take the person to the nearest hospital emergency room.

Never ignore comments or concerns about suicide. Always take action to get help.

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It's not known exactly what causes depression, but a variety of issues may be involved. These include:

• Brain chemistry. Neurotransmitters are naturally occurring brain chemicals that carry signals to other parts of your brain and body. When these chemicals are abnormal or impaired, the function of nerve receptors and nerve systems changes, leading to depression.
• Hormones. Changes in the body's balance of hormones may be involved in causing or triggering depression.
• Inherited traits. Depression is more common in people whose blood relatives — such as a parent or grandparent — also have the condition.
• Early childhood trauma. Traumatic events during childhood, such as physical or emotional abuse, or loss of a parent, may cause changes in the brain that increase the risk of depression.
• Learned patterns of negative thinking. Teen depression may be linked to learning to feel helpless — rather than learning to feel capable of finding solutions for life's challenges.

Risk factors

Many factors increase the risk of developing or triggering teen depression, including:

• Having issues that negatively impact self-esteem, such as obesity, peer problems, long-term bullying or academic problems
• Having been the victim or witness of violence, such as physical or sexual abuse
• Having other mental health conditions, such as bipolar disorder, an anxiety disorder, a personality disorder, anorexia or bulimia
• Having a learning disability or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Having ongoing pain or a chronic physical illness such as cancer, diabetes or asthma
• Having certain personality traits, such as low self-esteem or being overly dependent, self-critical or pessimistic
• Abusing alcohol, nicotine or other drugs
• Being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender in an unsupportive environment

Family history and issues with family or others may also increase your teenager's risk of depression, such as:

• Having a parent, grandparent or other blood relative with depression, bipolar disorder or alcohol use problems
• Having a family member who died by suicide
• Having a family with major communication and relationship problems
• Having experienced recent stressful life events, such as parental divorce, parental military service or the death of a loved one

Complications

Untreated depression can result in emotional, behavioral and health problems that affect every area of your teenager's life. Complications related to teen depression may include, for example:

• Alcohol and drug misuse
• Academic problems
• Family conflicts and relationship difficulties
• Suicide attempts or suicide

There's no sure way to prevent depression. However, these strategies may help. Encourage your teenager to:

• Take steps to control stress, increase resilience and boost self-esteem to help handle issues when they arise
• Practice self-care, for example by creating a healthy sleep routine and using electronics responsibly and in moderation
• Reach out for friendship and social support, especially in times of crisis
• Get treatment at the earliest sign of a problem to help prevent depression from worsening
• Maintain ongoing treatment, if recommended, even after symptoms let up, to help prevent a relapse of depression symptoms

Teen depression care at Mayo Clinic

• Depressive disorders. In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5. 5th ed. American Psychiatric Association; 2013. https://dsm.psychiatryonline.org. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Bipolar and related disorders. In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5. 5th ed. American Psychiatric Association; 2013. https://dsm.psychiatryonline.org. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Brown AY. Allscripts EPSi. Mayo Clinic. April 9, 2021.
• Teen depression. National Institute of Mental Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/teen-depression/. Accessed March 30, 2022.
• Depression in children and teens. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/The-Depressed-Child-004.aspx. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Psychotherapy for children and adolescents: Different types. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Psychotherapies-For-Children-And-Adolescents-086.aspx. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Suicidality in children and adolescents being treated with antidepressant medications. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/suicidality-children-and-adolescents-being-treated-antidepressant-medications. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Depression medicines. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/free-publications-women/depression-medicines. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Building your resilience. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Psychiatric medications for children and adolescents: Part I ― How medications are used. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Psychiatric-Medication-For-Children-And-Adolescents-Part-I-How-Medications-Are-Used-021.aspx. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Psychiatric medications for children and adolescents: Part II ― Types of medications. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Psychiatric-Medication-For-Children-And-Adolescents-Part-II-Types-Of-Medications-029.aspx. Accessed May 5, 2021.
• Weersing VR, et al. Evidence-base update of psychosocial treatments for child and adolescent depression. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. 2017; doi:10.1080/15374416.2016.1220310.
• Zuckerbrot RA, et al. Guidelines for adolescent depression in primary care (GLAD-PC): Part I. Practice preparation, identification, assessment, and initial management. Pediatrics. 2018; doi:10.1542/peds.2017-4081.
• Cheung AH, et al. Guidelines for adolescent depression in primary care (GLAD-PC): Part II. Treatment and ongoing management. Pediatrics. 2018; doi:10.1542/peds.2017-4082.
• Resilience guide for parents and teachers. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/guide-parents-teachers. Accessed May 4, 2021.
• Rice F, et al. Adolescent and adult differences in major depression symptoms profiles. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2019; doi:10.1016/j.jad.2018.09.015.
• Haller H, et al. Complementary therapies for clinical depression: An overview of systemic reviews. BMJ Open. 2019; doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028527.
• Ng JY, et al. Complementary and alternative medicine recommendations for depression: A systematic review and assessment of clinical practice guidelines. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapeutics. 2020; doi:10.1186/s12906-020-03085-1.
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Practice Bulletin No. 92: Use of psychiatric medications during pregnancy and lactation. Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2008; doi:10.1097/AOG.0b013e31816fd910. Reaffirmed 2019.
• Neavin DR, et al. Treatment of major depressive disorder in pediatric populations. Diseases. 2018; doi:10.3390/diseases6020048.
• Vande Voort JL (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic. June 29, 2021.
• Safe Place: TXT 4 HELP. https://www.nationalsafeplace.org/ txt-4-help. Accessed March 30, 2022.
• Antidepressants for children and teens

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Teen Depression: More Than Just Moodiness

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Being a teenager can be tough, but it shouldn’t feel hopeless. If you have been feeling sad most of the time for a few weeks or longer and you’re not able to concentrate or do the things you used to enjoy, talk to a trusted adult about  depression .

Do I have depression?

• Do you often feel sad, anxious, worthless, or even “empty”?
• Have you lost interest in activities you used to enjoy?
• Do you get easily frustrated, irritable, or angry?
• Do you find yourself withdrawing from friends and family?
• Are your grades dropping?
• Have your eating or sleeping habits changed?
• Have you experienced any fatigue or memory loss?
• Have you thought about suicide or harming yourself?

Depression looks different for everyone. You might have many of the symptoms listed above or just a few.

How do I get help for depression?

• Talk to a trusted adult  (such as your parent or guardian, teacher, or school counselor) about how you’ve been feeling.
• Ask your doctor  about options for professional help. Depression can be treated with psychotherapy (also called “talk therapy”), medication, or a combination of medication and talk therapy.
• Try to spend time with friends or family,  even if you don’t feel like you want to.
• Stay active and exercise,  even if it’s just going for a walk. Physical activity releases chemicals, such as endorphins, in your brain that can help you feel better.
• Try to keep a regular sleep schedule.
• Eat healthy foods.

You’re not alone, and help is available. You can feel better. To get help, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline   at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org   .

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES National Institutes of Health NIMH Identification No. OM 22-4321

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Teen Depression

Being a teenager can be tough, but it shouldn’t feel hopeless. Check your symptoms, and find out what you can do if you think you might have depression. https://go.usa.gov/xFWnV  #shareNIMH

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How To Write A Strong Essay On Depression?

Table of Contents

Looking for useful information that will help you write a powerful essay on depression? You’ve come to the right place, then!

Depression is a worldwide spread disease that negatively affects how people feel, the way they think, and how they act. It is also the leading cause of disability. There are estimates that more than 300 million people are affected by depression globally, and this condition is also one of the most common mental disorders in the USA.

No wonder depression essay is a typical assignment for high school and college students. The goal of writing about this mental condition is to increase awareness among young people about mental health and help them find solutions to this problem.

In this guide, you will find all the necessary information for writing the best essays on this topic.

Depression essay: what’s the deal?

At some point in our lives, we all may experience symptoms like sadness, loss of interest, lack of pleasure from performing daily activities, etc.

For most people, these symptoms are a completely normal response to unpleasant or stressful events that they experience, for example, romantic relationships failures or financial issues.

Negative feelings are usually painful and overwhelming, but as time goes by, they become less intense and disappear.

But if these feelings persist, they may affect people’s life substantially and result in depression.

In recent decades, clinical depression has reached epidemic proportions and is widespread in the suburbs inner cities, farms, refugee camps, boardrooms, and classrooms, and women are more likely to be depressed than man.

Recent research reveals that the United States is the most depressed country in the world.

When writing an essay about this mental illness, you need to examine different aspects. For example, you may write a postpartum depression essay or explore how this mental condition affects the brain, personality, and physical health.

The choice of topics is endless, but you should follow standard writing requirements when working on your projects. Let’s discuss some important steps of writing an essay about mental disorders in detail.

Depression research paper outline: a brief how-to

Many students skip this stage in the writing process and as a result, may waste a lot of time when doing research and actually writing.

Creating a working outline for your project is an essential step that will help you stay focused and increase your overall productivity. Never skip this crucial step if you want to succeed.

Here are some tips on how you can do it right.

• Choose a topic for your research and do some preliminary reading. Search for some interesting facts and try to think about new ways to address your topic. Scan some articles and look for knowledge gaps.
• Take notes when you see an interesting quote and create a list of your sources. You can use them as references in your essay. Keep all the information you have gathered in one place.
• Write down the objective of your essay in one sentence. Think about the outcome you want to achieve when other people read your essay.
• Look through your notes and make a list of all the important points you want to make. Use brainstorming techniques and write down all ideas that pop into your head.
• Review the points and create a thesis statement for depression research paper or essay.
• Organize the list of points to create a structure of your essay . Put the points in a logical order. Check all aspects to make sure that each of them is relevant to your objective.
• Revise all your points and try to put your outline in a standard format: numbered or bulleted list.

Depression essay introduction: how to start?

The introduction of your essay should provide some context and prepare your readers for the arguments you would present next.

Start your introduction with an attention grabber to engage your audience. It can be a provocative question, statistics, an anecdote, an interesting fact, etc.

Introduce your specific topic and provide some context to help your readers understand your paper. For example, you can define some key terms.

Finish your introduction with a strong thesis statement that clearly and concisely states the central argument or the purpose of your paper.

e.g., Students who drop out of a high school before graduation are more susceptible to depression and anxiety and have a higher risk of facing mental and physical health problems later in life.

You may also briefly outline the major points of your paper to help your audience follow your argument.

Depression essay conclusion: what should be included?

The conclusion is the last chance to impress your readers so it can be the most challenging part of an essay to write.

It should give your paper a sense of completeness and answer the question, “so what?”

You need to restate your main claim and tie that claim to a larger discussion. Don’t introduce any new ideas or subtopics here.

You can conclude your paper using one of the following strategies:

• Call for a specific action.
• Outline next steps for other researchers.
• Speak about future implications.
• Compare different situations or issues.
• Use a quotation.
• Ask a provocative question.

The use of depression essay example

A good essay example may help you understand how your project must be written. You can find a lot of essay examples online or order a well-written example from a professional writer.

You should read it and analyze what strategies and techniques are used to convey the main ideas and make an impression on readers.

Besides, you can get a better understanding of how you can structure your paper and what transitions you can use to ensure a logical flow of ideas.

Essay on depression: what to cover?

Writing about depression in college essay can involve a lot of different topics, especially those connected with the epidemic of mental disorders in teens.

For example, you may write causes of teenage depression essay and discuss multiple factors that create chemical imbalances in the human brain which may result in mental disorders and lead to such symptoms like anger, irritability, and agitation:

• Biological factors – family history of mental disorders.
• Social factors – loneliness and isolation, lack of meaningful relationships with family or peers.
• Behavioral factors – alcohol or drug abuse.
• Psychological factors – early childhood trauma, recent stressful experiences like a death in the family.

TOP-10 depression essay topics

• Effects of mood disorders on physical health.
• Causes of depression among teens.
• Compare depression and bipolar disorder.
• Neurodegenerative effects of long-term depression.
• Mental disorders and personality changes in adults.
• Impact of psychological stress on mental disorders.
• Teen depression and suicide.
• Depression symptoms in children and adults.
• Are we witnessing an epidemic of serious mood disorders?
• Digital media and mental disorders in children.

Argumentative essay on depression: how to prove you’re right?

Argumentative essay on depression is a more complex task because you need to take a stance and create a convincing argument to persuade your readers and make them accept your point of view or take a specific action.

You need compelling evidence to support your claims and main points.

Consult credible online sources, for example, a website of the American Psychiatric Association, to find some facts or statistics about mental disorders or news about current research on the topic.

Review some statistics which you can use to support your argument.

• According to estimates, about 15% of adults experience depressive episodes in their lifetime.
• About 5% of the US population experience seasonal depression every year.
• The most “depressed” countries in the world are the USA, France, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and Colombia.
• Japan has one of the lowest depression rates in the world, but it has one of the highest suicide rates, which is one of the leading causes of death among Japanese teens.
• 4.8% of men and 8.5% of women suffer from depression in the USA.
• The median age of people experiencing a major depressive episode is 32.
• More than 44,000 American commit suicide each year and it’s the 2nd leading cause of death for young people aged from 15 to 24.

Argumentative essay topics about depression

• Is there any correlation between burnout, depression, and anxiety?
• How to deal with a crisis when living with mental disorders?
• Is it common to have both anxiety and depression at the same time?
• Can sleep deprivation cause mental disorders?
• Is there any relationship between the consumption of certain food and mental disorders?
• Can food help with overcoming anxiety?
• Social media obsession and mental health issues.
• Why do a lot of teens struggle with mental disorders?
• Can exercise treat mental health issues?
• How can we tell the difference between grief and depression?

Feel free to choose any of these interesting topics and write your own depression essay.

Although mental disorders are a complicated thing to write about, you are much likely to successfully cope with this challenging task if you follow our easy guidelines.

Depressed with the task to write depression? Forget the anxiety! Order your paper within three clicks and enjoy the bright side of life!

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Addressing the Link Between Anxiety, Depression, and Student Attendance

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Well before the pandemic, Ray Renshaw knew the danger of letting students get into the habit of avoiding school.

“We were sitting in [individualized education program] meetings with all these kids who didn’t want to come to school,” said Renshaw, the director of special services at the Westwood Regional school district in New Jersey. “And then, if they were coming to school, they’d sit in class, just beside themselves with anxiety, and they’d leave. They’d go to [the guidance office] or they’d go hide in the bathroom,” Renshaw said. “It was really challenging to educate these kids and keep tabs on them.”

Renshaw and his colleagues have spent the last five years finding ways to help middle and high school students in special education work through the anxiety and depression that gets in the way of schoolwork. In the process, they stemmed a significant source of chronic absenteeism in the district: refusal to go to school.

“School avoidance has been a growing problem for years before the pandemic,” but periodic school closures, social isolation, and growing academic and anxiety issues have created a perfect environment for adolescents to balk at school, said Jayne Demsky, the founder of the School Avoidance Alliance , a nonprofit group that works with parents and educators on student mental health policies.

Studies suggest 1 percent to 2 percent of all students experience school refusal at some point in their school careers, and students with specific disabilities can be particularly at risk in middle and high school.

“The transitions to different schools, different peers, all the fears and the differences in workload all become big issues,” Demsky said. “School avoidance is usually attributed to a mental health disorder or undiagnosed learning difference, but they’re often co-occurring with other things happening in a child’s life,” like school and family disruptions.

Donna Volpe, the director of special services for the 2,600-student Ramsey, N.J., school district, said she has seen “a higher intensity of problems” for students with emotional disturbance, also called “emotional dysregulation” in the last few years.

“Our students who were already dysregulated have had … more school refusal, more difficulty transitioning back to the classroom,” she said. “We’ve had to be very creative with some of our students, because the worst thing we could do is keep them out of class—because then it just becomes harder and harder for them to return.”

Federal civil rights data suggest even before the pandemic, more than 1 in 5 special education students were chronically absent in middle school, and more than 1 in 4 special education students missed school frequently in high school—rates more than 6 percentage points higher than their general education peers. Unlike more general absenteeism, research suggests the majority of students who refuse to attend school have one or more depressive or anxiety disorders.

“School refusal severely hurts the trajectory of kids’ lives and stunts them, but a lot of schools miss it,” Demsky said. “They don’t believe it or they might interpret it as kids being oppositional, defiant, or manipulative. And a lot of that is because schools and teachers weren’t trained to understand anxiety signs and symptoms.”

Christopher Kearney, the director of the School Refusal and Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the University of Las Vegas, has found chronic tardiness, withdrawal, fatigue, crying in class, and even physical symptoms such as stomach pain or headaches can be warning signs even before students start to actively miss class. And the more class students miss, the more anxiety they can develop about falling behind and out of touch with peers.

“With school avoidance and anxiety, as it builds and becomes more entrenched, it’s harder and harder to break out of,” Demsky said. “So it behooves the school to intervene early and work with parents to create a plan with a feeling of empathy and kindness. When schools do that, they have so much better outcomes than when a school is acting punitively.”

Making school a ‘hangout spot’

At Westwood, that meant building an environment to ease fears about school for students with anxiety or depressive disorders, while also providing academic remediation and disability services.

“We had to dig out the root cause of why these kids weren’t coming to school,” said Jessica Gluck, Westwood’s assistant director of special services. “These students are all [academically] at or above grade level, but … they didn’t feel comfortable, you know, navigating the hallways, being in the cafeteria, or being in those classrooms and having to speak in front of their peers. For these students, the environment was just too much and too overwhelming for them.”

Now, high-anxiety students come to the TEAM (Targeting Emotional Aptitude Mindfully) Day School, a special school-within-the-school made up of two classrooms decked out in couches and bean bag chairs instead of desks, holding classes of five to six students at most.

“We wanted to create an environment that looks more like a hangout spot than a school, which has really helped students who need that home base,” Gluck said.

Students in the program come to school an hour later than the main start time and leave 25 minutes earlier to avoid crowds. They also stay in the same classroom, taught by a handful of teachers and a clinician, rather than changing classes. But the students also take part in regular counseling groups and a social-skills class, in which they learn techniques for managing stress and performance anxiety, and practice leading class discussions once a week.

“Usually our students coming in as freshmen don’t want to leave the room at all—they don’t even leave to go to the bathroom or eat lunch. And then by senior year, they’re just in there for English and P.E. and they like it as a home base for their study hall, but they’re really coming and going and doing all the other electives” in the general education classes, Gluck said.

When the program started in 2017, Westwood’s overall chronic-absenteeism rates were 6 percent on average in middle school and 9 percent in high school, with special education students disproportionately at risk. By 2020-21, even amid spreading chronic absenteeism nationwide, Westwood had only 1.5 percent chronic absenteeism on average in high school and just over 2 percent in middle school.

The difference for special education students in particular was extreme: The current cohort of students missed between 57 and 121 days each in the year before entering the program; a year after participation in TEAM, their absences ranged from 1 to 22 days.

Renshaw, the district’s special-services director, said even during school closures, all special education students continued to come in person for half days to keep up both their mental health support and academic habits.

Keeping parents involved also can be crucial, particularly for middle school students on the cusp of adolescent disengagement from family. For example, the Ramsey district holds parent evening academies to help families of students who are experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety, or other emotional disturbances, according to Volpe, Ramsey’s director of special services. The district also now screens all 8th graders for depression, and those with significant symptoms are referred to in-person or telehealth therapy.

While high schoolers have made up the bulk of students in the Westwood TEAM Day School, it has expanded to middle school students in the last few years. Students with the most severe anxiety attend the standalone classroom. The district also contracts with local mental health clinicians to conduct home visits and on-site therapy sessions with middle school students at risk for school refusal.

“There’s much more flexibility at our middle school where we could come up with unique schedules. We meet them where they are, so the student might start with one period they’re the most comfortable with and then build through to go to another one,” Gluck said. “So there’s accountability from the clinician to work with parents as well as the students to increase their time at school.”

Renshaw stressed that schools that want to develop a similar program must commit both separate physical space and a team of teachers and clinicians to effectively support students with severe anxiety and school refusal.

“You really have to have training for teachers to understand mental health,” Gluck said, “because these kids are wonderful kids and they have got a lot of strengths, but when they’re having a tough time, they’re having a really, really tough time. So you really have to have people who understand anxiety and understand how to adapt mindful approaches to learning and have therapeutic support within the classroom, not just from the clinician.”

Coverage of students with learning differences and issues of race, opportunity, and equity is supported in part by a grant from the Oak Foundation, at www.oakfnd.org . Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage. A version of this article appeared in the October 26, 2022 edition of Education Week as Addressing the Link Between Anxiety, Depression, And Student Attendance

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327 Depression Essay Titles & Examples

When choosing a title about depression, you have to remain mindful since this is a sensitive subject. This is why our experts have listed 177 depression essay topics to help you get started.

🌧️ How to Write a Depression Essay: Do’s and Don’ts

🏆 unique titles about depression, 🥇 most interesting depression title ideas, 📌 good titles for depression essay, ✅ simple & easy depression essay titles, 🎓 interesting topics to write about depression, 📑 good research topics about depression.

• ❓ Research Questions for a Depression Essay

Depression is a disorder characterized by prolonged periods of sadness and loss of interest in life. The symptoms include irritability, insomnia, anxiety, and trouble concentrating. This disorder can produce physical problems, self-esteem issues, and general stress in a person’s life. Difficult life events and trauma are typical causes of depression. Want to find out more? Check out our compilation below.

A depression essay is an important assignment that will help you to explore the subject and its impact on people. Writing this type of paper may seem challenging at first, but there are some secrets that will make achieving a high grade much easier. Check below for a list of do’s and don’ts to get started!

DO select a narrow topic. Before starting writing, define the subject of the paper, and write down some possible titles. This will help you to focus your thoughts instead of offering generic information that can easily be found on Wikipedia. Consider writing about a particular population or about the consequences of depression. For example, a teenage depression essay could earn you excellent marks! If you find this step challenging, try searching for depression essay topics online. This will surely give you some inspiration.

DON’T copy from peers or other students. Today, tutors are usually aware of the power of the Internet and will check your paper for plagiarism. Hence, if you copy information from other depression essays, you could lose a lot of marks. You could search for depression essay titles or sample papers online, but avoid copying any details from these sources.

DO your research before starting. High-quality research is crucial when you write essays on mental health issues. There are plenty of online resources that could help you, including Google Scholar, PubMed, and others. To find relevant scientific articles, search for your primary and secondary topics of interest. Then filter results by relevance, publication date, and access type. This will help you to identify sources that you can view online and use to support your ideas.

DON’T rely on unverified sources. This is a crucial mistake many students make that usually results in failing the paper. Sources that are not academic, such as websites, blogs, and Wiki pages, may contain false or outdated information. Some exceptions are official publications and web pages of medical organizations, such as the CDC, APA, and the World Health Organization.

DO consider related health issues. Depression is often associated with other mental or physical health issues, so you should reflect on this in your paper. Some examples of problems related to depression are suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and panic attack disorder. To show your in-depth understanding of the issue, you could write a depression and anxiety essay that shows the relationship between the two. Alternatively, you can devote one or two paragraphs to examining the prevalence of other mental health problems in people with depression.

DON’T include personal opinions and experiences unless required. A good essay on the subject of depression should be focused and objective. Hence, you should rely on research rather than on your understanding of the theme. For example, if you have to answer the question “What is depression?” look for scientific articles or official publications that contain the definition rather than trying to explain it in your own words.

DON’T forget about structure. The structure of your essay helps to present arguments or points logically, thus assisting the reader in making sense of the information. A good thing to do is to write a depression essay outline before you start the paper. You should list your key points supported by relevant depression quotes from academic publications. Follow the outline carefully to avoid gaps and inconsistencies.

Use these do’s and don’ts, and you will be able to write an excellent paper on depression! If you want to see more tips and tricks that will help you elevate your writing, look around our website!

• Understanding Teen Depression Impacts of depression on teenagers Depression is characterized by several effects; however, most of them impact negatively to the teens. For instance, a considerable percentage of teens use extra-curriculum activities such as sports and games, […]
• Beck Depression Inventory, Its History and Benefits Therefore, the detection of depression at its early stage, the evaluation of the risks, and the definition of the level of depression are the main goals.
• Depression and Grief in the “Ordinary People” Film At the end of the film, he is healed and ready to forgive his mother and stop blaming himself. I believe that the relationship between Conrad and his therapist, Dr.
• Report Writing About Depression There is concrete evidence that many people in Australia tend to believe that depression is the cause of all suicide deaths in the world, but this not true.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Treating Depression CBT works on the principle that positive thoughts and behaviour heralds positive moods and this is something that can be learned; therefore, by learning to think and behave positively, someone may substitute negative thoughts with […]
• Social Networking and Depression The findings of the study confirmed that once an individual engages in social networking, his or her feeling of safety goes down and depression mood emerges meaning that a correlation between depression and social networking […]
• The Problem of Childhood Depression Thus, it is essential to explore the reasons for the disease and possible ways to treat depression in kids. In kids, the prevention of depression is fundamental to understanding the cause of the poor mood […]
• Depression in the Lens of History and Humanities In terms of history, this paper analyzes the origin of depression and the progress made over the years in finding treatment and preventive mechanisms.
• Case Study of Depression and Mental Pressure Alison believes that her illness is severe and taking a toll all the time, and the environment is worsening the condition.
• Depression, Grief, Loss in “Ordinary People” Film The coach is curious to know Conrad’s experiences at the hospital and the use of ECT. Towards the end of the film, Conrad reveals to the therapist that he feels guilty about his brother’s death.
• The Difference Between Art Deco and Depression Modern Design By and whole, Art Deco and Depression differ in their characteristics and their meanings as they bring unlike messages to the viewers.
• Obesity Co-Occurring With Depression The assessment will identify the patient with the two conditions, address the existing literature on the issue, examine how patients are affected by organizational and governmental policies, and propose strategies to improve the patient experience.
• Depression: A Cognitive Perspective Therefore, the cause of depression on this line may be a real shortage of skills, accompanied by negative self-evaluation because the individual is more likely to see the negative aspects or the skills he lacks […]
• Emotional Wellness: The Issue of Depression Through Different Lenses As for the humanities lens, the increasing prevalence of depression causes the institution of religion to incorporate the issue into major confessions’ mindsets and messages.
• Anxiety and Depression Among College Students The central hypothesis for this study is that college students have a higher rate of anxiety and depression. Some of the materials to be used in the study will include pencils, papers, and tests.
• Biological and Social-Cognitive Perspectives on Depression The social-cognitive perspective states that the disorder’s development is influenced by the events in the patient’s life and their way of thinking.
• Depression as a Psychological Disorder Summarizing and evaluating the information that trusted journals have published on the topic of depression might help create a well-rounded review of the condition and the scientific community’s understanding of it.
• Depression and Melancholia Expressed by Hamlet The paper will not attempt and sketch the way the signs or symptoms of depression/melancholia play a part in the way Shakespeare’s period or culture concerning depression/melancholia, but in its place portrays the way particular […]
• Depression and Its Causes in the Modern Society The higher instances of depression among women can be explained using a number of reasons including the lifestyle of the modern woman and her role in the society.
• NICE Guidelines for Depression Management: Project Proposal This topic is of importance for VEGA because the center does not employ any specific depression management guidelines.
• Depression in Older Adults The understanding and modification of the contributions of these factors is the ultimate goal of the clinicians who engage in the treatment of depression.
• PICO Analysis of Depression In other words, the causes of the given mental disorder can highly vary, and there is no sufficient evidence to point out a primary factor that triggers depression.
• Depression Among University Students The greatest majority of the affected individuals in different universities will be unable to take good care of their bodies and living rooms.
• Teenage Depression: Psychology-Based Treatment This finding underlines the need to interrogate the issue of depression’s ontology and epistemology. Hence, there is the need to have an elaborate and comprehensive policy for addressing teenage depression.
• Depression Symptoms and Cognitive Behavior Therapy The tone of the article is informative and objective, throughout the text the authors maintain an academic and scientific mood. The structure of the article is well organized and easy to read.
• Proposal on Depression in Middle-Aged Women By understand the aspect of unhappiness among the young women; it will be easier for the healthcare institutions to formulate effective and appropriate approaches to reduce the menace in the society.
• Biological Psychology: Lesion Studies and Depression Detection The purpose of this article is to share the research findings and discussion on the new methodological developments of Lesion studies.
• Using AI to Diagnose and Treat Depression One of the main features of AI is the ability to machine learning, that is, to use data from past experiences to learn and modify algorithms in the future.
• Artificial Intelligence Bot for Depression By increasing the availability and accessibility of mental health services, these technologies may also contribute to the development of cognitive science practices in Malaysia.
• COVID-Related Depression: Lingering Signs of Depression The purpose of the article is to depict the research in a more approachable way, while the latter accentuates the importance of various factors and flaws of the results. While the former is more simplified, […]
• Depression and Anxiety Among African Americans Finally, it should be insightful to understand the attitudes of friends and family members, so 5 additional interviews will be conducted with Black and White persons not having the identified mental conditions. The selected mental […]
• Depression in Dialysis Patients: Treatment and Management If I were to conduct experimental research about the treatment and management of depression in dialysis patients, I would focus on finding the most effective and safe medication for the condition among adults.
• The Serotonin Theory of Depression by Moncrieff et al. The serotonin theory of depression is closely related to antidepressants since the advent of SSRIs played a significant role in the popularization of the theory.
• Avery’s Depression in “The Flick” Play by Baker The emotional and mental state of Avery, the only African-American character out of the three, is fairly obvious from the get-go when asked about why he is so depressed, the answer is: “Um.
• Depression: A Quantitative-Qualitative Analysis A decision tree can be used due to the nature of the research question or hypothesis in place, the measurement of the dependent or research variable, the number of groups or independent variable levels, and […]
• Depression Detection Tests Analysis The problem of the abundance of psychological tests leads to the need to compare multiple testing options for indicators of their purpose, features, and interpretations of the evaluation and validity.
• Nursing Care for Patients With COVID-19 & Depression The significance of the selected problem contributed to the emergence of numerous research works devoted to the issue. This approach to choosing individuals guaranteed the increased credibility of findings and provided the authors with the […]
• 16 Personality Factors Test for Depression Patient Pablos results, it is necessary to understand the interaction and pattern of the scores of the primary factors. A combination of high Apprehension and high Self-Reliance is a pattern describing a tendency to isolate oneself.
• Depression in a 30-Year-Old Female Client In the given case, it would be useful to identify the patterns in Alex’s relationships and reconsider her responses to her partner.
• Using the Neuman Model in the Early Diagnosis of Depression In the history of the academic development of nursing theories, there are a variety of iconic figures who have made significant contributions to the evolution of the discipline: one of them is Betty Neuman.
• Depression in Primary Care: Screening and Diagnosis The clinical topics for this research are the incidence of depression in young adults and how to diagnose this disorder early in the primary care setting using screening tools such as PHQ9.
• Major Depression and Cognitive Behavior Therapy Since the intervention had no significant effect on Lola, the paper will explore the physical health implication of anxiolytics and antidepressants in adolescents, including the teaching strategies that nurses can utilize on consumers to recognize […]
• Jungian Psychotherapy for Depression and Anxiety They work as a pizza delivery man in their spare time from scientific activities, and their parents also send them a small amount of money every month.S.migrated to New York not only to get an […]
• COVID-19 and Depression: The Impact of Nursing Care and Technology Nevertheless, combatting depression is a crucial step in posing positive achievements to recover from mental and physical wellness caused by COVID-19.
• Depression Disorder Intervention The researchers evaluated the socioemotional signs of mental illnesses in a sample of diagnostically referred adolescents with clinical depression required to undergo regular cognitive behavioral therapy in a medical setting.
• Financial Difficulties in Childhood and Adult Depression in Europe The authors found that the existence of closer ties between the catalyst of depression and the person suffering from depression leads to worse consequences.
• Activity During Pregnancy and Postpartum Depression Studies have shown that women’s mood and cardiorespiratory fitness improve when they engage in moderate-intensity physical activity in the weeks and months after giving birth to a child.
• Clinical Depression: Causes and Development Therefore, according to Aaron Beck, the causes and development of depression can be explained through the concepts of schema and negative cognitive triad.
• Aspects of Working With Depression It also contributes to the maintenance and rooting of a bad mood, as the patient has sad thoughts due to the fact that the usual does not cause satisfaction.
• Depression Among Nurses in COVID-19 Wards The findings are of great significance to researchers and governments and can indicate the prevalence of anxiety and depression among nurses working in COVID-19 wards in the North-East of England during the pandemic.
• Depression Associated With Sleep Disorders Y, Chang, C. Consequently, it directly affects the manifestation of obstructive sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, and periodic limb movement disorder in people with depression.
• Depression in a 25-Year-Old Male Patient Moreover, a person in depression complains of the slowness in mental processes, notes the oppression of instincts, the loss of the instinct of self-preservation, and the lack of the ability to enjoy life.
• Aspects and Manifestation of Depression Although, symptoms of depression in young people, in contrast to older adults, are described by psychomotor agitation or lethargy, fatigue, and loss of energy.
• Complementary Therapy for Postpartum Depression in Primary Care Thus, the woman faced frustration and sadness, preventing her from taking good care of the child, and the lack of support led to the emergence of concerns similar to those in the past.
• Depression and Anxiety Clinical Case Many of the factors come from the background and life experiences of the patient. The client then had a chance to reflect on the results and think of the possible alternative thoughts.
• Uncontrolled Type 2 Diabetes and Depression Treatment The data synthesis demonstrates that carefully chosen depression and anxiety treatment is likely to result in better A1C outcomes for the patient on the condition that the treatment is regular and convenient for the patients.
• Technology to Fight Postpartum Depression in African American Women I would like to introduce the app “Peanut” the social network designed to help and unite women exclusively, as a technology aimed at fighting postpartum depression in African American Women.
• Complementary Therapy in Treatment of Depression Such practices lower the general level of anxiety and remove the high risks of manifestation of states of abulia, that is, clinical lack of will and acute depression.
• Social Determinants of Health and Depression Among African American Adults The article “Social Determinants of Health and Depression among African American Adults: A Scoping Review of Current Research” examines the current research on the relationship between social determinants of health and depression among African American […]
• Outcomes Exercise Has on Depression for People Between 45-55 Years According to the WHO, the rate of depression in the U.S.was 31. 5% as of October 2021, with the majority of the victims being adults aged between 45 and 55 years.
• The Postpartum Depression in Afro-Americans Policy The distribution of the funds is managed and administered on the state level. Minnesota and Maryland focused on passing the legislation regulating the adoption of Medicaid in 2013.
• Depression Among the Medicare Population in Maryland The statistics about the prevalence and comorbidity rates of depression are provided from the Medicare Chronic Conditions Dashboard and are portrayed in the table included in the paper.
• Depression as Public Health Population-Based Issue In regard to particular races and ethnicities, CDC provided the following breakdown of female breast cancer cases and deaths: White women: 128 new cases and 20 deaths per 100.
• Managing Mental Health Medications for Depression and its Ethical Contradiction The second objective is to discover ethical contradictions in such treatment for people of various cultures and how different people perceive the disorder and react to the medication.
• Aspects of Depression and Obesity In some cases, people with mild to severe depression choose not to seek professional care and instead try to overcome their depression with self-help or the support of family and friends.
• Antidepressant Treatment of Adolescent Depression At the same time, scientists evidenced that in the case of negative exposure to stress and depression, the human organism diminishes BDNF expression in the hippocampus.
• Online Peer Support Groups for Depression and Anxiety Disorder The main objective of peer support groups is connecting people with the same life experiences and challenges to share and support each other in healing and recovery.
• Depression in Adolescence and Treatment Approaches The age of adolescence, commonly referred to as children aged 10-19, is characterized by a variety of changes to one’s physical and mental health, as the child undergoes several stages of adjustment to the environment […]
• Emotional Encounter With a Patient With Major Depression Disorder I shared this idea with him and was trying to create the treatment plan, sharing some general thoughts on the issue.
• Childhood Depression in Sub-Saharan Africa According to Sterling et al, depression in early childhood places a significant load on individuals, relatives, and society by increasing hospitalization and fatality and negatively impacting the quality of life during periods of severe depression.
• Anxiety and Depression: The Case Study As he himself explained, he is not used to positive affirmation due to low self-esteem, and his family experiences also point to the fact that he was not comforted often as a child.
• Breastfeeding and Risk of Postpartum Depression The primary goal of the research conducted by Islam et al.was to analyze the correlation between exclusive breastfeeding and the risk of postpartum depression among new mothers.
• Nursing Intervention in Case of Severe Depression The patient was laid off from work and went through a divorce in the year. This led to a change in prescribed medications, and the patient was put on tricyclic anti-depressants.
• Screening for Depression in Acute Care The literature review provides EB analysis for the topic of depression to identify the need for an appropriate screening tool in addition to the PHQ-9 in the assessment evaluation process.
• Social Media Use and the Risk of Depression Thapa and Subedi explain that the reason for the development of depressive symptoms is the lack of face to face conversation and the development of perceived isolation. Is there a relationship between social media use […]
• Depression in the Field of a Healthcare Administrator According to Davey and Harrison, the most challenging part of healthcare administration in terms of depression is the presence of distorted views, shaped by patients’ thoughts.
• The Treatment of Adolescents With Depression While treating a teenager with depression, it is important to maintain the link between the cause of the mental illness’ progression and the treatment.
• Depression in the Black Community The speaker said that her counselor was culturally sensitive, which presumes that regardless of the race one belongs to, a specialist must value their background.
• Loneliness and Depression During COVID-19 While the article discusses the prevalence of loneliness and depression among young people, I agree that young people may be more subject to mental health problems than other population groups, but I do not agree […]
• Depression Screening in the Acute Setting Hence, it is possible to develop a policy recommending the use of the PHQ-9, such as the EBDST, in the acute setting.
• Ketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression: Neurobiology and Applications It is known that a violation of the functions of the serotonergic pathways leads to various mental deviations, the most typical of which is clinical depression.
• Treating Obesity Co-Occurring With Depression In most cases, the efficiency of obesity treatment is relatively low and commonly leads to the appearance of a comorbid mental health disorder depression.
• Treadmill Exercise Ameliorates Social Isolation-Induced Depression The groups included: the social isolation group, the control group, and the exercise and social isolation and exercise group. In the treadmill exercise protocol, the rat pups ran on the treadmill once a day for […]
• Depression and Anxiety Among Chronic Pain Patients The researchers used The Depression Module of the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale to interview participants, evaluate their answers, and conduct the study.
• Postpartum Depression in African American Women As far as African American women are concerned, the issue becomes even more complex due to several reasons: the stigma associated with the mental health of African American women and the mental health complications that […]
• The Depression Construct and Instrument Analysis For the therapist, this scaling allows to assess the general picture of the patient’s psychological state and obtain a result that is suitable for measurement.
• The Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) on Depression in Adults Introduction It is hard to disagree that there is a vast number of mental disorders that prevent people from leading their normal lives and are quite challenging to treat. One such psychological condition is depression (Li et al., 2020). Since there is a social stigma of depression, and some of its symptoms are similar to […]
• Stress and Depression Among Nursing Students The study aims to determine how different the manifestations of stress and depression are among American nursing students compared to students of other disciplines and what supports nursing students in continuing their education.
• Depression in Diabetes Patients The presence of depression concomitant to diabetes mellitus prevents the adaptation of the patient and negatively affects the course of the underlying disease.
• Depression among Homosexual Males The literature used for the research on the paper aims to overview depression among homosexual males and describe the role of the nurse and practices based on the Recovery Model throughout the depression.
• “What the Depression Did to People” by Edward Robb Ellis Nevertheless, the way the facts are grouped and delivered could be conducive to students’ ability to develop a clearer picture of the catastrophic downturn’s influences on the nation’s and the poor population’s mentalities.
• Economic Inequality During COVID-19: Correlation With Depression and Addiction Thus, during the pandemic, people with lower incomes experienced depression and increased their addictive behaviors to cope with the stress of COVID-19.
• Depression in the Black and Minority Ethnic Groups The third sector of the economy includes all non-governmental, non-profit, voluntary, philanthropic, and charitable organizations and social enterprises specializing in various types of activities, which did not find a place in either the public or […]
• A Description on the Topic Screening Depression If there is the implementation of evidence-based care, a reduction in the proportion of disability for patients with depression would be expected. A proposal was written describing the need for screening depression patients of nearly […]
• “Disclosure of Symptoms of Postnatal Depression, …” by Carolyn Chew-Graham Critique In light of hypothesizing the research question, the researchers suggest that health practitioners have the ability to create a conducive environment for the disclosure of information.
• Depression – Psychotherapeutic Treatment Taking into account the fact that the specialist is not able to prescribe the medicine or a sort of treatment if he/she is not sure in the positive effect it might have on the health […]
• Depression as a Major Health Issue The purpose of the study was to examine the implications of cognitive behavior approaches for depression in old women receiving health care in different facilities.
• Effective Ways to Address Anxiety and Depression Looking deep into the roots of the problem will provide a vast and detailed vision of it, and will help to develop ways to enhance the disorders.
• Einstepam: The Treatment of Depression The treatment of depression has greatly revolutionized since the development of tricyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors in the 1950s. In the brain, it inhibits the NMDA receptors and isoforms of NOS.
• The Potential of Psilocybin in Treating Depression First of all, it is essential to understand the general effects of psilocybin on the brain that are present in the current literature.
• Depression Among High School Students The major problem surrounding depression among adolescents is that they are rarely diagnosed in time and therefore do not receive treatment they need.
• Depression: Diagnostics, Prevention and Treatment Constant communication with the patient and their relatives, purposeful questioning of the patient, special scales and tests, active observation of the patient’s appearance and behavior are the steps in the nursing diagnosis of depression.
• Depression and Anxiety Intervention Plan John’s Wort to intervene for her condition together with the prescribed anti-depressant drugs, I would advise and educate her on the drug-to-drug relations, and the various complications brought about by combining St. Conducting proper patient […]
• Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Therapy On the other hand, behavioral therapy relies on the assumption that “both abnormal behavior and normal behavior are learned”. The two approaches are thus highly complementary, as while humanistic therapy aims at perceiving and resolving […]
• The Use of Psychedelic Drugs in Treating Depression This study aims to establish whether depressive patients can significantly benefit from psilocybin without substantial side effects like in the case of other psychedelic drugs.
• Postpartum Depression Among the Low-Income U.S. Mothers Mothers who take part in the programs develop skills and knowledge to use the existing social entities to ensure that they protect themselves from the undesirable consequences associated with the PPD and other related psychological […]
• The Beck Depression Contrast (BDI) The second difference between the two modes of the BDI is in the methodology of conducting the survey. This is where the interviewer first gets the history of the patient to try and get the […]
• Depression: Description, Symptoms and Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment A diagnosis is made in situations where the symptoms persist for at least two weeks and lead to a change in the individual’s level of functioning.
• Psychedelic Drugs and Their Effects on Anxiety and Depression The participants must also be willing to remain in the study for the duration of the experiments and consent to the drugs’ use.
• VEGA Medical Center: The Quality of Depression Management This presentation is going to provide an overview of a project dedicated to the implementation of NICE guidelines at the VEGA Medical Center.
• Anxiety and Depression in Hispanic Youth in Monmouth County Therefore, the Health Project in Monmouth County will help Hispanic children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 to cope with anxiety and depression through behavioral therapy.
• Anxiety Disorders and Depression In her case, anxiety made her feel that she needed to do more, and everything needed to be perfect. She noted that the background of her depression and anxiety disorders was her family.
• Clinical Case Report: Depression It is possible to assume that being in close contact with a person who has depression also increases the probability of experiencing its symptoms.
• Interventions for Treating Depression after Stroke Inherently, the link between depression and stroke can be analyzed on the basis of post-stroke depression that is identified as the major neuropsychiatric corollary of stroke.
• Depression: The Implications and Challenges in Managing the Illness At home, these people lack interest in their family and are not be able to enjoy the shared activities and company of the family.
• Expression Symptoms of Depression A major finding of the critique is that although the research method and design are appropriate to this type of study, the results may be speculative in their validity and reliability as the researchers used […]
• Researching Postnatal Depression Health professionals suggest that the fluctuations in the level of hormones cause changes in the chemical composition of the brain. The researcher has stated that the sample was selected from the general practitioners and health […]
• The Older Women With Depression Living in Long-Term Care The researchers used the probability-sampling method to select the institutions that were included in the study. The health care professionals working in the nursing homes were interviewed to ascertain the diagnosis of depression as well […]
• Medical Evaluation: 82-Year-Old Patient With Depression Her extreme level of weakness unfolded when the patient admitted that she lacked the strength to stand on her feet and to head back to her sleeping bed on a disastrous night.Mrs.
• Depression in Adults: Community Health Needs The challenge of depression in the elderly is the recognition of signs and symptoms or the frequent underreporting of the symptoms of depression in adults over the age of 65.
• The Discussion about Depression in Older Patients Depression is often identified as the most prevalent psychiatric disorder in the elderly and is usually determined by symptoms that belong to somatic, affective, and cognitive categories.
• Depression in Older People in Australia Although a good number of depressed elderly patients aspire to play an active role in the treatment decision-making process, some prefer to delegate this role to their doctors.
• In-Vitro Fertilization and Postpartum Depression The research was conducted through based on professional information sources and statistical data collected from the research study used to further validate the evidence and outcome of this study.
• Depression: Screening and Diagnosis What he tries to do is to live a day and observe the changes that occur around. What do you do to change your attitude to life?
• Depression in Australia. Evaluation of Different Factors In attempts to identify the biological causes of depression, the researchers focus on the analysis of brain functioning, chemical mediators, their correlations with the neurologic centers in the brain, and impact on the limbic system […]
• Mental Health Paper: Depression The prevalence of mental health conditions has been the subject of many studies, with most of these highlighting the increase in these illnesses.
• The Two Hit Model of Cytokine-Induced-Depression The association between IL-6 polymorphism and reduced risk of depressive symptoms confirms the role of the inflammatory response system in the pathophysiology of IFN-alpha-induced depression.
• Ante-Partum & Postpartum Exposure to Maternal Depression The researchers engaged in the research work on this particular study topic by approaching it on the basis of maternal behavior and circumstances, as they connect to depressive conditions in their own lives and the […]
• Depression in Australia, How Treat This Disorder According to The World Health Organization, depression is defined as a disorder in the mental health system that is presented with feelings of guiltiness, low concentration, and a decrease in the need for sleep.
• Steroid Use and Teen Depression In this manner, the researcher will be in a position to determine which of the two indicators is strongest, and then later, the indicators can be narrowed down to the most basic and relevant.
• Depression Among Minority Groups Mental disorders are among the major problems facing the health sector in America and across the world in the contemporary society.
• Aspects and Definition of Depression: Psychiatry This is the personal counseling of a patient with the doctor, and it is one of the very best processes. In the case of a physician dealing with a mental patient, the most preferable way […]
• Dual Illness – Depression and Alcohol Abuse The intention of the research paper is to assess if indeed there is an association between alcoholism as manifested by Jackson, and a case of depression.
• Depression and Paranoid Personality Disorder Bainbridge include: The analysis of paranoia and anxiety caused by substance abuse reveals that the diagnosis can be correct based on the symptoms, but the long-lasting nature of the symptoms rejects this diagnosis in favor […]
• Antidepressant Drugs for Depression or Dysthymia These are the newer form of antidepressant that are based on both the principle of serotonin reuptake prevention and norepinephrine action.
• The Relationship of Type 2 Diabetes and Depression Type 2 diabetes is generally recognized as an imbalance between insulin sensitivity and beta cell function We have chosen a rural area in Wisconsin where we can focus our study and select a group of […]
• Teenage Depression and Alcoholism There also has been a demonstrated connection between alcoholism and depression in all ages; as such, people engage in alcoholism as a method of self medication to dull the feelings of depression, hopelessness and lack […]
• “Relationships of Problematic Internet Use With Depression”: Study Strengths and Weaknesses One of the study strengths is that the subject selection process is excellently and well-designed, where the subjects represent the study sample, in general.
• Depression Treatment: Biopsychosocial Theory More to the point, the roles of nurses, an interprofessional team, and the patient’s family will be examined regarding the improvement of Majorie’s health condition.
• Postpartum Depression and Its Impact on Infants The goal of this research was “to investigate the prevalence of maternal depressive symptoms at 5 and 9 months postpartum in a low-income and predominantly Hispanic sample, and evaluate the impact on infant weight gain, […]
• Postpartum Depression: Statistics and Methods of Diagnosis The incorporation of the screening tools into the existing electronic medical support system has proved to lead to positive outcomes for both mothers and children.
• Comorbidity of Depression and Pain It is also known that dysregulation of 5-HT receptors in the brain is directly related to the development of depression and the regulation of the effects of substance P, glutamate, GABA and other pain mediators. […]
• Hallucinations and Geriatric Depression Intervention Sandy has asserted further that the cleaners at the residence have been giving him the wrong medication since they are conspiring to end his life with the FBI.Mr.
• Changes in Approaches to the Treatment of Depression Over the Past Decade In spite of the fact that over the past decade many approaches to the treatment of depression remained the same, a lot of new methods appeared and replaced some old ones due to the development […]
• Management of Treatment-Resistant Depression The significance of the problem, the project’s aims, the impact that the project may have on the nursing practice, and the coverage of this condition are the primary focuses of this paper.
• Depression and Anxiety in Dialysis Patients However, the study indicates the lack of research behind the connection of depression and cognitive impairment, which is a significant limitation to the conclusive statement.
• Adolescent Grief and Depression In looking for an activity that may help him or her keep away from the pain he or she is experiencing, the victim may decide to engage in sexual activities. Later, the adolescent is also […]
• Suicide and Depression in Students Students who belong to racial and ethnic minorities constitute the group of risk connected with high depression and suicidal rates and it is the primary task of health teachers to reduce suicidal rates among all […]
• Depression Disorder: Key Factors Epidemiology refers to the study of the distribution and determinants of health related events in specific populations and its applications to health problems.
• Depression Effects of School Children However the present difficulties that he is going through being a 16 year old; may be associated to a possible cause of Down syndrome complications, or the feelings and behavioral deficiency he associates to the […]
• Depression, Hallucination, and Suicide: Mental Cases How they handle the process determines the kind of aftermath they will experience for instance it can take the route of hallucinations which is treatable or suicide which is irreversible thus how each case is […]
• Depression, Its Perspective and Management Therefore this paper seeks to point out that stress is a major ingredient of depression; show the causes, symptoms, highlight how stresses is manifested in different kinds of people, show how to manage stress that […]
• Daily Living, Depression, and Social Support Activities of Elderly Turkish People Navigating the delicate and often convoluted maze of the current issues affecting the elderly has continued to present challenges to the professionals in the field especially with the realization that these issues and needs are […]
• The Theory of Personality Psychology During Depression The study concerns personality pathology, and the results of the treatment given to patients who are under depression, and how personalities may have adverse effects on the consequences of the cure.
• Depression and the Media Other components of the cognitive triad of depression are the aspect of seeing the environment as overwhelming and that one is too small to make an impact and also seeing the future as bleak and […]
• Poor Body Image, Anxiety, and Depression: Women Who Undergo Breast Implants H02: There is no difference in overt attractiveness to, and frequency of intimacy initiated by, the husband or cohabitating partner of a breast implant patient both before and after the procedure.
• Reducing Anxiety and Depression With Exercise Regardless of the type of results achieved, it is recommendable for people undergoing mental problems like depression and anxiety to exercise regularly.
• Stress, Depression and Psychoneuroimmunology The causes and symptoms of stress may vary from person to person and the symptoms can be mental as well as physical.
• A Critical Evaluation of Major Depression This paper has actively shown how factors such as financial insecurity, job loss, income, and educational inequalities, lifestyle diseases, and breakdown of the social fabric have acted to propel the mental disorder by making use […]
• Depression, Substance Abuse and Suicide in Elderly While significant body of research has been devoted to the study of depression in elderly, little attention has been paid to the investigation of substance abuse, emotional instability, burden feelings, and depression.
• Adult Depression Sufferer’s and Withdrawal From Family and Friends
• Depression: Helping Students in the Classroom
• Major Depression: Treating Depression in the Context of Marital Discord
• Family Therapy for Treating Major Depression
• Adverse Childhood Experiences Cause Depression
• Depression and Alzheimer’s Disease
• Rumination, Perfectionism and Depression in Young People
• “Gender Differences in Depression” by Nolen-Hoeksema
• Anxiety and Depression Disorders
• Beck’s Cognitive Therapy Approach to Depression Treatment
• Cannabis Abuse Increases the Risk of Depression
• Depression: Risk Factors, Incidence, Preventive Measures & Prognostic Factors
• Depression Diagnostics Methods
• Concept Analysis of Loneliness, Depression, Self-esteem
• Teen Suicide and Depression
• Depression and Diabetes Association in Adults
• The Correlation Between Perfectionism and Depression
• Geriatric Dementia, Delirium, and Depression
• Dementia, Delirium, and Depression in Older Adults
• Dealing with Depression in the Workplace
• Depression in People With Alcohol Dependence
• Depression and Anxiety Due to School and Work-Related Stress
• Creating a Comprehensive Psychological Treatment Plan: Depression
• Experimental Psychology. Bouldering for Treating Depression
• Depression and Psychotherapy in Adolescence
• Postpartum Depression: Treatment and Therapy
• Atypical Depression Symptoms and Treatment
• Dementia, Delirium, and Depression in Frail Elders
• Depression & Patient Safety: Speak Up Program
• Mindfulness Meditation Therapy in Depression Cases
• A Review of Postpartum Depression and Continued Post Birth Support
• Psychodynamic Therapy for Depression
• Depression Screening in Primary Care for Adolescents
• Freud’s Depression: Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions
• Optimal Mental Health Approaches: Depression & Anxiety
• Great Depression in “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
• Depression in Adolescents and Interventions
• Bipolar Disorder: Reoccurring Hypomania & Depression
• Postpartum Depression: Understanding the Needs of Women
• Major Depression Treatment During Pregnancy
• Patients’ Depression and Practitioners’ Suggestions
• Traditional Symptoms of Depression
• Social Media Impact on Depression and Eating Disorder
• Anxiety and Depression in Children and Adolescents
• Depression Studies and Online Research Sources
• Drug Abuse and Depression Treatment
• Depression Explanation in Psychological Theories
• Food Insecurity and Depression in Poor Families
• Peer Popularity and Depression Among Adolescents
• Alcohol Abuse, Depression and Human Trafficking
• Depression Assessment Using Intake Notes
• Depression in Adolescents and Cognitive Therapy
• Diagnosing Depression: Implementation and Evaluation Plan
• Beck Depression Inventory: Evaluation Plan
• Depression in Iranian Women and Health Policies
• Depression Patients and Psychiatrist’s Work
• Depression Patients’ Needs and Treatment Issues
• Suicide and Depression: Connection, Signs and Age
• Health Promotion: Depression Awareness in Teenagers
• Depression and Cancer in Caucasian Female Patient
• Depression in Patients with Comorbidity
• Depression After Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment
• Depression and Psychosis: 32-Year-Old Female Patient
• Postpartum Depression and Acute Depressive Symptoms
• Women with Heart Disease: Risk of Depression
• Postpartum Depression and Its Peculiarities
• Exercises as a Treatment for Depression
• Depression Treatment Changes in 2006-2017
• Depression in Elders: Social Factors
• Depression Among High School Students
• False Memories in Patients with Depression
• Postpartum Depression Analysis in “Yellow Wallpaper”
• The Canadian Depression Causes
• Widowhood Effects on Men’s and Women’s Depression
• Teen Website: Fish Will Keep Depression Away
• Bipolar Expeditions: Mania and Depression
• Obesity and Major Depression Association
• Fast Food, Obesity, Depression, and Other Issues
• Depression in the Future Public Health
• Depression: Patients With a Difficult Psychological State
• Depression: Pathophysiology and Treatment
• Stress, Depression, and Responses to Them
• Beck Depression Inventory in Psychological Practice
• Problem of the Depression in Teenagers
• Supporting the Health Needs of Patients With Parkinson’s, Preeclampsia, and Postpartum Depression
• Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Application
• Psychological Measures: The Beck Depression Inventory
• Yoga for Depression and Anxiety
• Sleep Disturbance, Depression, Anxiety Correlation
• Depression in Late Life: Interpersonal Psychotherapy
• Postpartum Depression and Comorbid Disorders
• Arab-Americans’ Acculturation and Depression
• Organizational Behaviour: Depression in the Workplace
• Relationship Between Depression and Sleep Disturbance
• Child’s Mental Health and Depression in Adulthood
• Parents’ Depression and Toddler Behaviors
• Managing Stress and Depression at Work Places – Psychology
• Job’ Stress and Depression
• Depression Measurements – Psychology
• Methodological Bias Associated with Sex Depression
• Relationship Between Sleep and Depression in Adolescence
• The Effects of Depression on Physical Activity
• Psychological Disorder: Depression
• Depression and Workplace Violence
• The Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Depression, Anxiety and Posttraumatic Stress for Women After Spousal Emotional Abuse
• Depression Diagnosis and Theoretical Models
• The Impact of Exercise on Women Who Suffer From Depression
• Evolutionary Psychology: Depression
• Effect of Social Media on Depression
• Depression in the Elderly
• Poly-Substance Abuse in Adolescent Males With Depression
• How Does Peer Pressure Contribute to Adolescent Depression?
• How Do Genetic and Environmental Factors Contribute To The Expression of Depression?
• Depression and Cognitive Therapy
• Cognitive Treatment of Depression
• Book Review: “Breadwinning Daughters: Young Women Working in a Depression- Era City, 1929-1939” by Katrina Srigley
• Depression: A Critical Evaluation
• Psychopharmacological Treatment for Depression
• “Breadwinning Daughters: Young Working Women in a Depression-Era City” by Katrina Srigley
• Depression in female adolescents
• Interpersonal Communication Strategies Regarding Depression
• Depression: Law Enforcement Officers and Stress
• Social Influences on Behavior: Towards Understanding Depression and Alcoholism Based on Social Situations
• Depression Experiences in Law Enforcement
• Childhood Depression & Bi-Polar Disorder
• Depression Psychological Evaluation
• Concept of Childhood Depression
• Correlation Between Multiple Pregnancies and Postpartum Depression or Psychosis
• Depression and Its Effects on Participants’ Performance in the Workplace
• Catatonic Depression: Etiology and Management
• The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) Measure
• Depression: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
• Depression Levels and Development
• Depression Treatment: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
• Concept of Depression Disorder
• Does Divorce Have a Greater Impact on Men than on Women in Terms of Depression?
• Oral versus Written Administration of the Geriatric Depression Scale

❓Research Questions for a Depression Essay

• Does Poverty Impact Depression in African American Adolescents and the Development of Suicidal Ideations?
• Does Neighborhood Violence Lead to Depression Among Caregivers of Children With Asthma?
• Does Parent Depression Correspond With Child Depression?
• How Depression Affects Our Lives?
• Does Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Have an Effect on Depression Levels in Elderly Women?
• How Can Overcome Depression Through 6 Lifestyle Changes?
• Does Maternal Depression Have a Negative Effect on Parent-Child Attachment?
• Can Providers’ Education About Postpartum Depression?
• Can Vacation Help With Depression?
• How Children Deal With Depression?
• Can Diet Help Stop Depression and Violence?
• Does Depression Assist Eating Disorders?
• Does Depression Lead to Suicide and Decreased Life Expectancy?
• Can Obesity Cause Depression?
• Can Exercise Increase Fitness and Reduce Weight in Patients With Depression?
• Does Fruit and Vegetable Consumption During Adolescence Predict Adult Depression?
• Does Depression Cause Cancer?
• Does Money Relieve Depression?
• Does the Average Person Experience Depression Throughout Their Life?
• Are Vaccines Cause Depression?
• Does Social Anxiety Lead to Depression?
• Does Stress Cause Depression?
• How Bipolar and Depression Are Linked?
• Does Postpartum Depression Affect Employment?
• Does Postpartum Depression Predict Emotional and Cognitive Difficulties in 11-Year-Olds?
• Does Regular Exercise Reduce Stress Levels, and Thus Reduce Symptoms of Depression?
• Does the Natural Light During Winters Really Create Depression?
• How Can Art Overcome Depression?
• How Anxiety and Depression Are Connected?
• Does Positive Psychology Ease Symptoms of Depression?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Prevalence of Depression in School-Going Adolescents and Its Impact on Scholastic Performance: A Cross-Sectional Study

Veni nirudya.

1 Psychiatry, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar, IND

Mohan Reddy M

Ruth sneha chandrasekhar, purushotham a, mano ranjitha v.

Background: Adolescents are more prone to depression, which needs early identification.

Aim: The aim of the study is to assess the prevalence of depression in school-going adolescents and its association with their scholastic performance.

Materials and methods: This questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 473 students, among whom 271 girls and 202 boys with an age group of 12-17 years, who were selected through simple random sampling from four high schools located in and around Kolar city, Karnataka, India, from January 2023 to March 2023, were included in the study after obtaining three informed consents from adolescents. A questionnaire was given to all the study participants, and the depression was assessed according to the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC) score. The severity of depression among the children was assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-A (PHQ-A). Further, these children were assessed for their scholastic performance based on their final examination scores. The data were entered into an Excel sheet, and statistical analysis was performed.

Results: A total of 473 subjects were included in the present study; 177 had depression, which represents 37% of the total population. According to PHQ-A, 31% had mild depression, 5% had moderate depression, and 1% had severe depression. The association between depression and scholastic performance was not significant.

Conclusion: In the current study sample, depression was found to be mild to moderate, which reflects the overall performance of adolescents. All students were treated accordingly. Hence, active measures are to be initiated to prevent depression.

Introduction

Depression, the most common mental illness among adolescents, is characterised by sadness, loss of interest, guilt, loss of appetite, and difficulty concentrating [ 1 ]. Globally, 34% of teenagers between the ages of 10 and 19 are at risk of developing clinical depression, which is greater than the estimates for those between the ages of 18 and 25 [ 2 ]. After cardiac and respiratory conditions, depression is the third-leading cause of disability. According to the Global Burden of Disease, one of the primary leading causes of years with a disability-adjusted life expectancy in 2020 will be depression [ 3 ].

For a transition from puberty to maturity, an individual must go through an intermediate stage of development known as adolescence [ 4 ]. Around the world, the prevalence of mental problems in children and adolescents ranges from 1 to 51%. India is home to 21% of the teenage population worldwide [ 5 ]. According to several community-based studies, 2.6% to 35.6% of kids suffer from psychiatric illnesses. According to WHO estimates, mental health disorders account for 16% of the worldwide illness burden and harm among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years [ 6 , 7 ]. Additionally, it states that depression frequently impacts family connections, social functioning, and academic achievement, and that most suicides in India are noticed in the under-30 age group [ 8 ]. Studies also report that depression often affects many functions in humans and is recurring in nature.

Hence, there is a need to study depression among school students, as the onset of most lifetime mental disorders occurs during this period. The study aimed to assess the prevalence of depression in adolescents and its association with scholastic performance.

Materials and methods

Methodology

A total of 473 students, among whom 271 girls and 202 boys with an age group of 12-17 years, were chosen through simple random sampling from four high schools in and around Kolar City, Karnataka, India, and included in this questionnaire-based cross-sectional study from January 2023 to March 2023 after receiving three informed consents from participants, parents, and school administration.

All the students were administered a semi-structured questionnaire named Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC) in English and explained in their mother tongue to assess depression. A psychiatrist evaluated the children who exhibit features suggestive of depression, and the diagnosis was confirmed.

The severity of depression among the children was assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-A (PHQ-A). Further, these children were evaluated based on their final exam scores for scholastic performance.

Statistical analysis

The data obtained were recorded in an Excel data sheet. All categorical data were presented using frequency and percentage, and all continuous measurements were summarized using mean ± SD. Each clinical and demographic factor was associated with clinical depression using the Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test based on the expected frequencies for categorical data and the independent sample T-test for a continuous variable based on the normality assumption. The P-value was considered significant at a 5% significance level for all analyses.

As shown in Table ​ Table1, 1 , a total of 473 students of age group 12-17 years were assessed for depression in the present study. The mean age of the students selected for the study was 14±1.22 years. Out of the total participants, male students accounted for 202 (42%), and female students accounted for 271 (57%). Most participants were from nuclear families, with a percentage of 69%. All the study participants were divided as per birth order and are tabulated in Table ​ Table1 1 .

As shown in Figure ​ Figure1, 1 , the prevalence of depression according to the CES-DC was detected in 177 participants, representing 37% of the total population. According to the PHQ-A data, the prevalence of depression was as follows.

As depicted in Figure ​ Figure2, 2 , the majority (n=41) of the male students with depression secured 61-70%, and only five secured above 80%.

As depicted in Figure ​ Figure3, 3 , the majority (n=39) of female students with depression secured 61-70%, four members secured above 81-90%, and one student secured above 91%.

According to Table ​ Table2, 2 , there was significant depression noted in overall students with p<0.05.

As shown in Table ​ Table3, 3 , there was no significant association between depression and scholastic performance with p>0.05.

As shown in Figure ​ Figure4, 4 , among the total population, 37% had a screen time of two hours, 11% had a screen time of three hours, 10% had a screen time of half an hour, 1.6% had a screen time of 10 minutes, 0.8% had a screen time of 15 minutes, and 0.2% had a screen time of four hours, respectively.

As shown in Table ​ Table4, 4 , the Pearson correlation coefficient test was performed to find the correlation between individuals having depression and screen time. It was found that there was a negative correlation between individuals having depression and screen time spent, but the P-value was found to be significant P<0.00001.

An adolescent's social and personal lives may suffer as a result of the prevalence of depression. Because depression is a mental illness that affects young people, it is crucial to know how common it is among adolescents in school [ 9 ].

Depression was found to be mild in 31% of the study population, moderate in 5.4%, and severe in 1.2% of the high school students in the Kolar district.

Depression in school-aged teenagers was precipitated by broken households, including inter-parental confrontations, alcohol use by the father, solo parenting, and low self-esteem brought on by negative body views. The observed participants' overall depression rate was determined to be 37%, which is comparable to the 2017 Pokhara Metropolitan research [ 10 ].

The prevalence of depression was reported to be 50% in a few previous publications by Nagendra et al. and Jha et al., which is greater than the results of the current study [ 11 , 12 ]. The prevalence of depression among teenagers in other study reports in Indian literature ranged from 10% to 27%, which is lower than the results of the current study [ 13 ].

The common severity of depression in the present study was mild depression, noted in 31% of individuals, followed by moderate 5% and severe 1%, similar to study results conducted by Naushad et al. [ 14 ]. These results were contrary to the study results of Jha et al., who stated that moderate depression (41%) has the maximum number of participants, followed by mild (20%) and severe (11%).

Our study findings also showed a significant relationship between gender and the prevalence of depression, with depression slightly more common in girls than in boys (P<0.05). Despite the fact that both sexes reported using the internet or social media in harmful ways, females attributed their melancholy to having poor body image and low self-esteem. Our study findings were consistent with past study findings that depression was more prevalent in women than in men [ 15 ]. This was further demonstrated by Angold et al., who claimed that the hormonal changes associated with puberty are the reason why depression predominates more in women [ 16 ].

It was also found that depression was associated with birth order, as stated by Sidana et al. [ 17 ]. Few other reports have published that the prevalence of depression did not increase with age, which is correlated with the present study findings in Table ​ Table1 1 [ 13 ]. In our study, scholastic performance was not much affected, and this could be substantiated by the observation that many of the participants had features of mild depression that did not hinder their academic performance. The percentage of marks for boys and girls is represented in Figures ​ Figures2 2 - ​ -3. 3 . The results report that most participants with depression secured percentages of marks ranging from 60% to 70%.

Adolescents are exposed to the internet and social media due to changing technologies. According to our study, which examined students' screen time, 37% of them spent their time between one and two hours engaging themselves in screen activity, 11% for three hours, 10% for half an hour, 1.6% for 10 minutes, 0.8% for 15 minutes, and 0.2% for four hours, respectively. Teenagers who engaged themselves more in screen activity expressed their actions of loneliness, fewer interactions with family members, boredom, and being a single child. The easy accessibility of technology was also one of the confounding factors. Future research should focus on the relationship between problematic social media use and depressive symptoms in adolescents, which is a relatively new area of study. The Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to determine the relationship between depressed students and screen time. There was a negative correlation found between individuals with depression and screen time spent, but the P-value was found to be significant at P<0.00001, which is consistent with the Maras et al. 2015 study in which screen time was significantly associated with depressive symptoms [ 18 ].

In the study population of 473 students, 177 were found to be depressed, accounting for 37% of the total population. Depression was noted to be prevalent among high school students. However, no significant link was found between depression and academic performance. It could be explained better by the observation that the majority of them experienced mild depression and were able to function normally. Furthermore, children with severe depression [1.2%] had a significantly negative impact on their academic performance.

As a result, with an increasing number of people suffering from depression, more research is needed to find the ideal link between depression and academic achievement. It is also essential to create awareness among students, parents, and teachers about factors associated with depression.

This study did not include a long-term follow-up with students. Other areas of functioning, like non-academic activities, social interaction, and relationships with friends and family, were not explored.

Conclusions

The present study draws the conclusion that the overall prevalence of depression among school-going adolescents in the Kolar region is mild to moderate. There was no significant association between depression and scholastic performance.

Those students with depression were reassured and counselled, and a few who required pharmacotherapy were offered it accordingly. Further, it has been suggested to have frequent mental health camps in schools periodically to screen for mental disorders in school children, especially depression. This helps to identify a child with depression at an early stage and initiate remedial measures that would help the child improve their overall well-being and scholastic performance.

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Human Ethics

Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Institutional Ethics Committee of Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research issued approval DMC/ KLR/ IEC/616 /2022-23

Animal Ethics

Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue.

Under Pressure: An essay on school stress and mental health

Immense pressure built into school isn’t consistent with supporting students’ mental health.

I was in my Psychology class taking notes on anxiety when I felt like I had just read my life story. Mid-assignment, I started shaking and had difficulty continuing my work. My thoughts began to spiral: If I didn't write my notes, I would fail the test. If I failed the test I wouldn’t graduate. If I didn’t graduate I wouldn’t go to college, wouldn’t be accomplished, and soon enough, would have failed at life.

This account from a Kentucky student is just a fraction of the plethora of tales that the subject of mental health in schools is incomplete without. Unfortunately, I can relate, because education is one of the most powerful tools we need to change the world. We all want to be accomplished–but now, the biggest milestone we have is surviving it. 

Throughout America, schools give awards for best attendance, but they come with no recognition of the mental toll it takes to be present in the classroom. Academic accomplishment is presented as the Holy Grail–yet for students, the pursuit of schools' measures of success often feels like pushing ourselves to the breaking point. That leads to losing sight of the connections that make school meaningful. In the United States, almost 1 in 7 kids and teens have a mental health condition, and nearly half go untreated. According to recent studies, in Kentucky alone, at least 16% of children ages 3 to 17 have depression or anxiety. Schools aren't meeting the mental health needs of students, but this problem–as well as the students experiencing it firsthand–isn’t being understood or approached correctly. The immense pressure built into school isn’t consistent with supporting students' mental health.  

Somewhere a student is sitting in detention for interrupting class with excessive fidgeting, talking, and physical movements. For this student, having ADHD becomes a punishable offense; they are seen as unruly and wayward. 

In another school, a student is barred from attending Prom or after-school activities—a common punishment for students with too many unexcused absences. Is this fair for students with depression, who can face challenges gathering up the strength just to get out of bed, much less to have the capacity to attend a school that doesn't accommodate their needs? 

Elsewhere, a student not participating in class or activities because of a sense of hopelessness and lack of energy is written off as lazy, rather than having their specific needs met as a student with Bipolar Disorder. 

And when common conditions such as anxiety and depression remain stigmatized and punished in schools, what about students with experiences that remain deeply misunderstood by the general public? Students with such diagnoses often struggle to find understanding and support within the structure of school. 

More in school support and friendly environments are both pertinent needs for students with diagnosable and treatable mental health conditions, as well as ways of tending to overall student mental well-being. We can start now by enhancing awareness among our peers, the staff, and ourselves. Some research shows that academic-related stress negatively impacts mental health, physical health, and school performance. The pressure doesn’t help.

Today, it is a normalized and regular occurrence for  students to be forced to stand in front of their class, despite being petrified, often unable to utter a full sentence. Anxiety is seen as "stage fright,” to be casually confronted and overcome; the complexities of mental health are continuously overlooked in the school building. Little do they know how that simple act reinforces the idea of feeling worthless and not good enough in that student's mind by subjecting them to all that anxiety and worry. Then, that can spiral into the affirmations from classmates who feel pity for you, the blank stares and whispers, the cackles, and then, their own self-pity. Even after numerous presentations, it never gets better. It's always the same ambiance, the same fear, and the same high expectations that seem improbable to meet. Having encountered this countless times, I can assert that the way we approach mental health in school needs to change.  

I hope that one day in America every student will see school as a place to be heard, and won't look at school as a place where dreams are deferred, where we are destined to be misunderstood. What we need is understanding as the basic foundation of awareness. Knowledge of the existence of mental health conditions, without the ability to discern whether school stress worsens it, makes it powerless. It is only when we have sufficient understanding of a problem that we can begin to acknowledge and fix it. The understanding of whether stress from school exacerbates a student’s mental health challenges isn’t easy to acquire, but it’s where we have to start. 

Introduction

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Essay on Depression

Students are often asked to write an essay on Depression in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Depression

Understanding depression.

Depression is a mental health condition that affects a person’s mood. It’s more than just feeling sad or upset. People with depression may feel hopeless, lose interest in things they used to enjoy, and struggle with daily tasks.

Causes of Depression

Depression can be caused by various factors. These include biological changes in the brain, genetics, personal life experiences, and certain medications. It’s important to remember that it’s not a sign of weakness or a character flaw.

Recognizing Depression

Depression can appear differently in different people. Some might feel constantly sad, while others might lose interest in activities. It can also cause physical symptoms like changes in appetite or sleep patterns.

Treating Depression

Depression is treatable. Treatments include therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes like regular exercise and a healthy diet. It’s crucial to seek help if you or someone you know is showing signs of depression.

Also check:

• Paragraph on Depression
• Speech on Depression

250 Words Essay on Depression

Depression, a common yet serious mental health disorder, is characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a lack of interest or pleasure in activities. It affects individuals differently, leading to a variety of physical and emotional problems.

Causes and Risk Factors

Depression is a complex disorder with multiple contributing factors. Genetics play a significant role; individuals with a family history of depression are more likely to experience it. Environmental factors, such as exposure to violence, neglect, abuse, or poverty, also increase the risk. Personal characteristics, like low self-esteem or being overly dependent, self-critical, or pessimistic, can make individuals more prone to depression.

Impact on Life

Depression drastically impacts life quality. It can lead to social isolation, problems at work or school, and relationship difficulties. In severe cases, it can cause suicidal thoughts or actions, underlining the importance of seeking professional help.

Treatment and Management

Depression is treatable with a combination of psychotherapy and medication. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), interpersonal therapy (IPT), and problem-solving therapy are effective therapeutic approaches. Antidepressants can also help manage symptoms. Lifestyle changes, such as regular exercise, a healthy diet, and adequate sleep, are crucial for managing depression.

Depression is a significant global health issue that requires understanding, empathy, and awareness. By acknowledging its complexity and impact, we can foster an environment that supports mental health and well-being.

500 Words Essay on Depression

Introduction: unveiling depression.

Depression, a common and serious mental health disorder, is often characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a lack of interest or pleasure in activities. It is a complex condition that not only affects the individual’s mental state but also their physical health, often leading to a myriad of complications if left untreated.

Understanding the Causes

Depression is multifactorial, with both genetic and environmental factors contributing to its development. It is believed that a combination of genetic vulnerability and environmental stressors like trauma, loss of a loved one, or a difficult relationship can trigger changes in brain function and structure, leading to depression. Neurotransmitters, chemicals that facilitate communication between nerve cells, are also implicated in the pathogenesis of depression.

Manifestations of Depression

Depression manifests in various forms. Major Depressive Disorder, the most common, is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness or a lack of interest in outside stimuli. There’s also Persistent Depressive Disorder, a chronic form of depression where an individual experiences symptoms for at least two years. Other forms include Postpartum Depression, experienced after childbirth, and Seasonal Affective Disorder, which typically occurs during winter.

Impact on Daily Life

Depression significantly impairs an individual’s ability to function in their daily life. It affects their productivity at work or school, disrupts their relationships, and reduces their overall quality of life. It also increases the risk of other serious conditions, including heart disease and diabetes. In severe cases, depression can lead to suicidal ideation or attempts, making it a potentially life-threatening condition.

Depression and Stigma

Despite its prevalence and severity, depression is often stigmatized and misunderstood. Many people view it as a sign of weakness or dismiss it as mere sadness. This stigma can deter individuals from seeking help, exacerbating their condition. It is thus crucial to foster an understanding of depression as a serious health issue, not a personal failing.

Depression is generally treated with psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of both. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and interpersonal therapy (IPT) are effective treatment modalities. Antidepressants can also help regulate brain chemistry and alleviate symptoms. However, treatment is highly individualized, and what works for one person may not work for another.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

Depression is a pervasive and debilitating condition that requires our urgent attention. By increasing awareness, reducing stigma, and improving access to treatment, we can ensure that those suffering from depression receive the help they need. As a society, we must strive to understand and empathize with those battling depression, encouraging them to seek help without fear of judgement. Only then can we hope to truly combat this global mental health crisis.

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Survey: Kitsap teens report fewer feelings of depression, suicidal tendencies

Fewer Kitsap high schoolers report depressive feelings or suicidal thoughts than at any point in nearly eight years, a recent survey found, with reports of suicidal ideations at their lowest point since at least 2012.

Kitsap Public Health District officials say results from the 2023 Healthy Youth Survey , an anonymous statewide assessment of over 217,000 secondary students in Washington, are encouraging. But they caution that the number of youth reporting depression or suicidal thoughts remains high.

Declines in depressive feelings, suicidal ideation

Data from the survey, released in March, found that 36% of Kitsap 10th graders reported depressive feelings for multiple weeks in the past year. Over the same timespan, 19% reported serious thoughts of suicide.

In 2018, 40% said they had experienced depressive feelings and 27% had thoughts of suicide.

“It’s vital that we continue efforts to improve these percentages because they are still much too high,” Kari Hunter, an assessment and epidemiology program manager for the Kitsap Public Health District, wrote in an email. “Further research is needed to ensure programs and policies are meeting the needs of everyone.”

The Healthy Youth Survey is an effort by the state Department of Health and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to quantify the health and well-being of the state’s youth. Legislators, educators, and health officials use the metric — taken every other year — to create programs and policies to address student needs.

Statewide, 30% of Washington 10th graders said they felt depressive feelings, and 15% said they had thoughts of suicide. Girls, LGBTQ+ students, and students with disabilities experienced depressive feelings at higher rates than their peers, according to state data.

The 2023 survey, only the second iteration since the COVID-19 pandemic, showed positive trends for students across Washington. The percentage of students reporting depressive feelings declined, and rates of suicidal thoughts were at their lowest point in two decades.

“Our students are telling us that they are continuing to recover from the impacts of the pandemic—they are resilient, hopeful, and they are getting access to the support they need,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said in a statement. “While we still have work to do, the focused work of our educators, the support of our families and community members, and the resources provided by our Legislature are making a difference.”

How things have changed in Kitsap

Each Healthy Youth Survey between 2012 and 2018 showed an increase in depressive feelings and serious suicidal thoughts among Kitsap students. 

Students reported a decline in those outcomes for the first time on the 2021 survey. With the 2023 survey showing additional decline, officials hope this could be the beginning of a downward trend. 

However, Hunter says it's important not to draw too many conclusions from only two surveys. The health district focuses on longer-term trends. 

There are also concerns about how comparable the most recent survey results are to prior years. Before 2021, students completed the survey on paper in the classroom. A remote virtual model was used during the 2021 test.

“The Healthy Youth Survey is only as reliable as the responses provided by Kitsap students, and there have been changes in how the survey was administered through the pandemic, such as a switch to an online format. That may have influenced some students' responses,” Hunter said.

Schools focus on connections

Since the pandemic, school officials said they have placed more attention on students' well-being, expanded counseling services, and emphasized the importance of building connections with peers and adults.

Some evidence indicates this is paying off. The 2023 Healthy Youth Survey found that students reported an increase in outside support. Nearly 60% said they know an adult they could talk to when they felt depressed. Most students, 56%, said their school provided information about the warning signs of suicide.

Following the return to in-person learning, the South Kitsap School District focused on rebuilding relationships with students, encouraging engagement through attendance and extracurricular activities, and hiring additional staff like nurses and social workers, said Amy Miller, a district spokesperson.

Miller said the district also entered into a partnership with Communities in Schools, a nonprofit focused on preventing secondary students from dropping out of school by matching them with needed resources.

“It is difficult to speculate on how students are feeling, but we do know that these connections and positive relationships with caring adults really make a difference,” Miller wrote in an email.

The Central Kitsap School District has waived activity and athletic fees, expanded counseling and behavior services, and increased communication to families about access to counseling and mental health resources, said Franklyn MacKenzie, the district’s executive director of student support. They have also responded to concerns about increased anxiety at all grade levels by expanding access to e-therapy.

MacKenzie emphasized the benefit of positive social connections on students' mental health, noting that students reported an increase in support in the latest survey.

"We are encouraged by the Healthy Youth Survey data that shows a continued decrease in mental health concerns compared to pre-pandemic levels,” he wrote in an email. “These numbers help validate the work we’ve done in the past few years to support student mental health and well-being.”

Conor Wilson is a Murrow News fellow, reporting for the Kitsap Sun and Gig Harbor Now, a nonprofit newsroom based in Gig Harbor, through a program managed by Washington State University.

Ashland High School senior is local Daughters of the American Revolution essay winner

SHERBORN — An Ashland High School senior has been selected as this year's Framingham chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution local essay winner.

Emily Umholtz was selected from among seven area Good Citizen winners and selected by judges not affiliated with the DAR. She is a Student Council representative, a 2024 class officer and has been a captain for two years for ultimate frisbee.

Her future plans include attending college to major in chemistry, with a sub-focus in law and justice.

Umholtz was honored in February during the DAR's Good Citizen Award Ceremony at The Sherborn 1858 Town House.

Each year, the Framingham chapter of the DAR invites seven schools to participate in its Good Citizen Program.

Other students selected as Good Citizen winners by their schools included Alivia Toure, of Bellingham High School; Lunah Semprum, of Framingham High School; Reese Holmes, of Holliston High School; William Adamski, of Hopedale Junior-Senior High School; Caroline Kane, of Hopkinton High School); and Robert Lyons Jr., of Milford High School.

Each school’s faculty and student body committee choose one student from their senior class to become their school’s Good Citizen; students are recognized and awarded by the Framingham chapter of the DAR. Each Good Citizen must have and maintain the qualities of dependability, service, leadership and patriotism.

During the ceremony, Master Sgt. Andrew Baumgartner, of West Point Military Academy, served as guest speaker. He spoke of his love of education and his experiences during his years of service.

Also speaking was Vice President General of DAR Paula Renkas.

So Your High School Doesn’t Offer APs—Are AP Exams Still Important For College Admissions?

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Brown University

Advanced Placement courses are offered at thousands of high schools across the U.S.— approximately 35% of public high school graduates in the Class of 2023 took at least one AP exam, and approximately 2.8 million students sat for AP exams in 2023. However, a large number of schools do not offer AP courses. In many cases, this is due to a lack of resources—though strides have been made to increase access to AP courses in underprivileged schools, a gap in access persists along racial and socioeconomic lines. In other cases, schools are ditching the AP curriculum as a result of their educational philosophy. In 2018, elite private schools in the D.C. area such as Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Prep announced their intention to phase out AP classes, citing their desire for a more independent curriculum and a growing frustration with the AP’s orientation toward testing rather than other metrics for success.

Despite these drawbacks, AP courses and exams remain highly regarded by many colleges and universities, as they offer insight into students’ academic acumen and potential to complete college coursework successfully. As a result, many students without access to AP courses are left wondering whether they should still register, study and sit for AP exams.

First and foremost, students should know that colleges and universities evaluate their applications in the context of their school and the opportunities available to them. This means that if students did not have AP classes available to them at their schools, admissions officers will not expect to see AP courses or AP exam scores included in their applications. As such, these students’ applications will not be disadvantaged in any way by not including AP exams.

That being said, there are some scenarios in which a student may still wish to take an AP exam despite not having taken an AP course. These are the top three reasons that students might consider sitting for one or more AP exams:

1. To Earn College Credit

One of the main reasons students take AP exams is to earn college credit. Many colleges and universities grant credit for high AP exam scores (typically for 4s or 5s). By earning credit through AP exams, you may be able to fulfill prerequisites, skip introductory courses, or accelerate your progress toward graduation once you enroll in college. However, this is not the case at every school. In order to determine whether the time and effort you will put into studying and taking an AP exam will be justified, you should research whether the schools you are considering applying to give college credit for high AP exam scores. You can often find this information on admissions or departmental websites, or by contacting admissions representatives at each respective school. You can also check the College Board website to see if the schools on your list accept AP credits, but note that these policies change frequently, so you should still follow up with the schools for verification. If a handful of the schools on your list do accept high scores for credit, it may be a strategic choice to sit for one or more exam.

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Sh gun episode 10 review a powerful finale but not what i was expecting, the trump media stock price djt is about to adjust down by 22 7, 2. to use exam scores in lieu of the sat or act.

As Ivy League and other top schools reinstate their standardized testing requirements, some schools have announced their intention to allow students to submit test scores from AP examinations in place of ACT or SAT scores. Dartmouth allows students applying from schools outside of the U.S. to satisfy their testing requirement by submitting three AP exam scores. Meanwhile, Yale’s new test-flexible policy also allows students applying domestically to submit AP and IB scores in lieu of other standardized tests. If you are applying internationally or if you have reason to believe that you will achieve a stronger score on AP exams than on the SAT or ACT, you can consider sitting for the exams. Note that not all schools have such flexible testing policies, so you will likely still need to sit for the SAT or the ACT.

3. To Demonstrate Your Academic Abilities

It is important to remember that while they are not the only way to demonstrate their academic capabilities, AP exams are an unbiased and quantifiable way to assess students’ preparedness for college coursework. Students who struggled academically earlier in their high school years or who want to highlight their skills in a specific discipline may benefit from the inclusion of AP scores in their applicant profiles.

Finally, while students who do not have access to AP classes should consider their options and make a strategic decision about taking exams on the basis of their applicant profiles and academic goals, students who have taken AP courses absolutely should take AP exams. Failing to sit for the exams will not only foreclose the possibility of earning college credit, but it will also reflect poorly on your application and raise questions with admissions committees.

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Guest Essay

What Began as a War on Theater Won’t End There

By James Shapiro

Mr. Shapiro is the author of the forthcoming “The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.”

Productions of plays in America’s high schools have been increasingly under attack. In 2023, Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” was rejected in Tennessee (since it deals with adultery); “August: Osage County,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts, was canceled in Iowa after rehearsals had begun (the community was deemed not ready for it); and in Kansas, students were not even allowed to study, let alone stage, “The Laramie Project ,” a play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the murder of a gay student, Matthew Shepard.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in the Educational Theater Association’s most recent survey, 85 percent of American theater teachers expressed concern about censorship . Even Shakespeare is at risk: In Florida, new laws led to the restriction of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to grades 10 through 12 and “Romeo and Juliet” could not be taught in full to avoid falling afoul of legislation targeting “sexual conduct.” Kill off young people’s exposure to theater, and you kill off a generation of playgoers, along with the empathy and camaraderie (already in short supply) that are intrinsic to theater. According to the latest report from the National Endowment for the Arts , from 2017 to 2022 the percentage of Americans who went even once a year to see a nonmusical play dropped by roughly half, from about 10 percent to less than 5 percent.

What begins as a war on theater never ends there.

The current attacks on theater in American schools have their origins in a struggle that took place in the late 1930s, when America’s political leadership believed that the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were vital to the health of the Republic and deserving of its financial support. There was still an implicit understanding that theater and democracy — twinborn in ancient Greece, spheres where competing visions of society could be aired and debated — were mutually dependent. Funded by Congress as part of a Works Progress Administration relief bill and established in 1935, the Federal Theater Project by 1939 had staged over 1,000 productions in 29 states, seen free or for a pittance by 30 million spectators, or roughly one in four Americans, two-thirds of whom had never seen a play before.

It brought children’s plays on touring trucks to kids in crowded cities. It staged works in Spanish, Yiddish and Italian to reach immigrants. It established what it called Negro units from Hartford, Conn., to Seattle to support Black actors and playwrights. It staged Christmas plays and classics by Shakespeare and Euripides and nurtured young playwrights and directors, including Arthur Miller and Orson Welles. It brought free theater to asylums, orphanages, hospitals, prisons and veterans’ homes. It revived playgoing in rural states where the movies had all but ended it. Ten million listeners a week tuned in to its radio broadcasts. It established ties with hundreds of educational, fraternal, civic and religious groups, strengthening communal bonds.

It turned out that Americans were hungry for plays about issues that mattered to their lives, topics largely shunned by Hollywood and the commercial stage. So they flocked to see new plays about substandard housing and the plight of struggling farmers. One of the most remarkable Federal Theater ventures was a stage version of Sinclair Lewis’s novel “It Can’t Happen Here ,” in which a fascist is elected president of the United States. It opened on the same day, Oct. 27, 1936, in 18 cities across the country, and by the time it closed, more than 379,000 Americans had seen it. The cost of these thousand or so productions to taxpayers was roughly the price of building a single battleship.

The program’s popularity contributed to its undoing. Many of those in Congress who had voted to fund the Federal Theater became frightened by its reach and impact, its interracial casting, its challenge to the status quo — frightened, too, perhaps, by the prospect of Americans across racial, economic and political divides sitting cheek by jowl in packed playhouses.

Three years after the creation of the Federal Theater, Congress authorized the establishment of what would become the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Martin Dies of Texas. It was to supposed to spend seven months investigating the rise of Nazism, fascism and communism in America and submit a report. The ambitious Mr. Dies, desperate to have his committee’s life extended, instead focused much of his attention on a more vulnerable target: the Federal Theater, accusing it of disseminating offensive and communistic and therefore un-American values. In the course of waging and winning this battle, he assembled a right-wing playbook so pervasive that it now seems timeless. He succeeded wildly: All Federal Theater productions were abruptly terminated in 1939, and the House Un-American Activities Committee lasted until 1975. With a nascent national theater now destroyed, targeting theater in schools was the inevitable next step for his successors, who — whether cynical politicians or school board members eager to police what offends their sensibilities — have all stolen a page from the Dies playbook.

It’s hard to imagine what America would be like today had support for the Federal Theater continued and Mr. Dies’s committee not been renewed. Counterfactual history is best left to novelists. But a more vibrant theatrical culture extending across the land might well have led to a more informed citizenry and, by extension, a less divided and more equitable and resilient democracy. What happened instead was that Mr. Dies begat Joseph McCarthy, who begat Roy Cohn, who begat Donald Trump.

Some of those familiar with this history haven’t given up. Right now, artists are preparing projects that on July 27 will open simultaneously in 18 U.S. cities and towns, much as “It Can’t Happen Here” did in 1936 . Under the rubric of Arts for EveryBody, the initiative is bringing together performers, audiences, community leaders and local officials. It is a small start and a promising one. So, too, is legislation coming before Congress, the STAGE Act of 2024, that would provide badly needed support for endangered nonprofit theaters across the land. Passing it should be a no-brainer, but there’s a likelihood that the Dies playbook will be used to defeat it. Until those in power in this country pivot from suppressing theater to investing in it, it’s not just the arts but also democracy itself that remains vulnerable.

James Shapiro teaches English at Columbia University and is the author of the forthcoming “ The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War .”

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Local students among winners of state essay, poster contest

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WBKO) – Several area students are among this year’s winners in the Kentucky Department of Agriculture Poster and Essay Contest.

The theme of the contest, “Agriculture for a Better Kentucky,” reflected on the important role of agriculture in Kentucky, according to a news release from Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell.

“Learning the importance of agriculture starts at a young age. Emphasizing that importance through the artwork and essays from students across our Commonwealth is the best way to showcase the writing and artistic talent of our students while providing the knowledge that agriculture is essential to our state and our world,” Commissioner of Agriculture Jonathan Shell said.

The KDA received 1,065 entries, including 970 posters, according to a news release.

Each winning entry received a $100 award from Kentucky Agriculture and Environment in the Classroom and will be displayed at the 2024 Kentucky State Fair in August in Louisville.

Winning students will be honored on May 18 at the University of Kentucky’s Football Recruiting Room at Kroger Field.

“Congratulations to each of these winners. We owe our farmers a lot of gratitude and these pieces of art are just a small show of appreciation for what they bring to our economy.”

Participants will then be guests at the University of Kentucky versus Vanderbilt baseball game at Kentucky Proud Park.

The digital winner, which includes photos or original digital artwork, is 11th-grader Mattie Reynolds of Hopkins County Central High School.

Poster winners are:

• Kindergarten: Ella Ruth Lowe, South Edmonson Elementary
• First grade: Erina Shiroyama, Jody Richards Elementary School
• Second grade: Spencer Avery, Muhlenberg South Elementary School
• Third grade: Emma Midkiff, Muhlenberg South Elementary School
• Fourth grade: Wilma Farmer, Heritage Elementary School
• Fifth grade: Layla Farmer, Heritage Elementary School
• Sixth grade: Louis Walker, West Hardin Middle School
• Seventh grade: Isabella Lee, West Hardin Middle School
• Eighth grade: Kayelee Frizzell, Bloomfield Middle School
• Ninth grade: Blakely Beth Callahan, South Laurel High School
• 10th grade: Amaya Ogata, Summit Christian Academy
• 11th grade: Lauren Seebold, Spencer County High School
• 12th grade: Emily Shaw, Metcalfe County Senior High School

Essay winners are:

• Kindergarten (tie): Philip McKemy, McKemy Academy
• Kindergarten (tie): Matthew McKemy, McKemy Academy
• First grade: Ava Lee, Austin Tracy Elementary
• Second grade: Easton Dunn, Southern Elementary School
• Third grade: Colt McFarland, St. Mary School
• Fourth grade: Ashleigh McDonald, Waco Elementary School
• Fifth grade: Jameah Kirby, Metcalfe Elementary School
• Sixth grade: Lauren Forbis, East Hardin Middle School
• Seventh grade: Ava Burton, Hickman County High School
• Eighth grade: Sylvia Mason, Noe Middle School
• Ninth grade: AdyMae Williams, Central Hardin High School
• 10th grade: Mason Graham, Summit Christian Academy
• 11th grade: Varshitha Ramesh, Western Hills High School
• 12th grade: Thomas Fox, Spencer County High School

Copyright 2024 WBKO. All rights reserved.

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