Cultural Aspects Of Depression Essay

Submitted By kbarth7
Words: 374
Pages: 2

Depression
Why is it not recognised in all cultures- or is it? How do sociocultural factors figure into this?

Prevalence: lifetime prevalence varies widely, from 3% in Japan to 17% in the U.S.
In North America the probability of having a major depressive episode within any year-long period is 3-5% for males and 8-10% for females
Most cases occur in USA
Nearly 1 in 5 adults experience anxiety or depression in the U.K.
Up to 15% of those diagnosed with depression commit suicide

Symptoms:
Behavioural:
extreme eating habits- eating too much and gaining weight or eating too little and losing weight
Abnormal sleeping habits- sleeping a lot or not sleeping at all
Unexplained aches and pains
Loss of interest in activities with friends and family
Emotional
continuous low mood or sadness feeling hopeless and helpless having low self-esteem feeling guilty feeling irritable and intolerant of others feeling anxious having suicidal thoughts or thoughts harming yourself
Cognitive:
negative or distorted thinking difficulty concentrating forgetfulness indecisiveness
Somatic:
unexplained physical pains self-harm and suicide attempts
Cultural:
http://psych.stanford.edu/~tsailab/PDF/Understanding%20Depression%20Across%20Cultures.pdf social scientists believe that the core feelings of emptiness, loss, and helplessness associated with depression are universally experienced the very definition of depression is imbued with Western cultural assumptions. this raises the question about how can one study cultural variation in a disorder is culturally constructed?
Researches approach trying to bridge the two gaps by studying it in two ways: the ethnographic approach and the biomedical