The Mental Health Foundation explains that despite stigma, depression is a common mental health disorder that causes people to experience a wide range of symptoms including a loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt and low energy.
Mind, a leading mental health charity in the UK state that one in four people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England
A new report by a team of 25 experts from 11 countries estimates that around five percent of the adult population around the world, in any year, is living with depression. Sky News reported that in high-income countries, about half of people suffering from depression are not diagnosed or treated, and this rises to 80-90 percent in low and middle-income countries.
These shocking statistics have led to the Lancet-World Psychiatric Association Commission to call for a “whole-of-society response to reducing the global burden of depression,” calling depression a “global health crisis”.
Symptoms of clinical depression can persist for weeks or months and are bad enough to interfere with work, social and family life. They can also affect individuals both psychologically and physically.
