We already know: depression can strike at any age. Researchers from University College London and the University of Liverpool looked into the matter and discovered that this disease particularly affects adolescent girls from the age of 14.
During their work, funded by the British government, they followed 10,000 children born between 2000 and 2001 from the Millennium Cohort Study. When the latter were 3, 5, 7, 11 and 14 years old, they asked their parents about the Mental Health of their children. At 14, the teenagers were in turn invited to talk about their mental health. The researchers found that 24% of 14-year-old girls reported depressive symptoms, compared to 9% of boys of the same age. And when parents were asked about their daughters, only 18% described these signs, while they claimed to have observed depressive symptoms in 12% of boys.
Teenage girls face many pressures
Results which suggest, according to Anna Feuchtwang, head of the National Children’s Bureau, that parents are less attentive to the problems of their daughters than to those of their sons because the latter’s malaise manifests itself more easily through aggressive behavior. for example. But how to explain that adolescent girls are more prone to depression? “They face a wide range of pressures like college stress, body image issues, bullying and social media pressure,” highlighted Dr Marc Bush, of the charity YoungMinds.
To stop this worrying phenomenon “all services – schools, childcare services and the National Health Service (NHS) – play their part in the rapid detection of problems and offer solutions”, concludes an NHS spokesperson. This phenomenon does not spare French teenagers. A epidemiological investigation recent study showed that 21% of 16-year-old girls had already attempted suicide.
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Teenage depression: how to spot it?
Depression in adolescence increases the risk of violence
Depression, the first disease in teenagers
