We already know: the depression can strike at any age. Researchers from University College London and the University of Liverpool have looked into the question and found that this disease particularly affects teenage girls as young as 14 years old.
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 the age of 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 said they saw depressive symptoms in 12% of boys.
Adolescent girls facing many pressures
Results which suggest, according to Anna Feuchtwang, head of the National Children’s Bureau, that parents pay less attention to their daughters’ problems than to those of their sons because the latter’s discomfort manifests itself more easily through aggressive behavior. for example. But how can we explain that teenage girls are more prone to depression? “They face a wide range of pressures like college stress, body image issues, bullying and the pressure created by social media,” highlighted Dr. Marc Bush, of the charity YoungMinds.
To curb this disturbing phenomenon “all services – schools, child welfare services as well as the National Health Service (NHS) – play their part in detecting problems early and proposing solutions”, concludes an NHS spokesperson. This phenomenon does not spare French teenagers. A epidemiological investigation recent research has shown that 21% of 16-year-old girls had already attempted suicide.
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