TTE Verdict - Issue 1: An update on depression
A response to comments
In TTE’s verdict on antidepressants, we highlighted the 5 million individuals who are unnecessarily on drug treatment. In cases of mild depression, the effects are clinically insignificant, and any improvements are primarily due to the placebo effect, natural recovery, or nonspecific effects.
In the comments, John Davison asks for the figures for different age groups and sexes
Links: ONS Statistics; Priory Statistics; NHS England Digital
Many surveys measure symptoms of depression using questionnaires rather than confirmed clinical diagnoses, so numbers may be an ‘over-estimate’ of diagnosed disease. Results also vary as surveys use different instruments, different thresholds, and different sample frames, so any comparisons come with a warning.
But the trends do show younger people, especially 18 to 30-year-olds, are the high-risk group for depressive symptoms.
For example, Our Future’s Health UK data reports that those aged 18-29 in the UK were over four times more likely to report sympto…
