Module Guide Name of Module: Research Activity Campus: Southend & Colchester Full Module Code : HS859-7-FY Module Dates: Oct 2019 – May XXXXXXXXXXcohort) Academic Year: XXXXXXXXXX Student Number: 120...

THE EFFECTS OF DEPRESSION ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS
(LITERATURE REVIEW)
Table of Contents
Introduction    3
Search Strategy and Outcome    4
Databases    4
Selection of Materials    4
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria    4
Thematic Critical Review    5
Theme 1: The Extent of Depression in Adolescents    5
Theme 2: Trend and Risk Factors of Adolescent Depression in UK    7
Theme 3: Consequences of Adolescent Depression on Their Mental Health in UK    9
Theme 4: Probable Methods of Screening Depression and Their Treatments    11
Conclusion    13
References    14
Appendices    16
Appendix 1: Databases: Google Scholar and Medline    16
Appendix 2: CASP Table    17
Appendix 3: Budgetary Summary    23
Appendix 4: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria    24
Introduction
A prevalent mental health condition in teenagers worldwide, with an average one year frequency between 4 to 5 percent in mid to later adolescence, is unipolar depressive disorder. Mental illness in teenagers is a significant suicidal risk indicator, including more than half of teen suicide deaths confirmed to have a depressive disorder during the time of loss, the second and third contributing trigger of death in such age group (Wang et al. 2020). Depression also contributes to significant social and intellectual disabilities and an elevated risk of smoking, drug abuse and obesity. It is therefore important to identify and treat this condition.
Among adolescents, depression may also produce major non-medical expenses in many ways. Depression, firstly, will cause girls and boys to either skip school or fall back in school. Education is the vital determining factor of adult earnings, so teens will lose earnings towards their lifetime if student performance and results are significantly impaired by depression. Depression can inhibit children and adolescents school success, just as these symptoms decrease the performance of function in adults.
Secondly, some facets of well-being might be influenced by depression. Through a link regarding depression and risky habits, such as liquor and substance use, bingeing and nicotine, such consequences could occur. In addition, children with mental and behavioural problems are substantially more likely to report opioid usage and are at increased risk of engaging in the criminal justice system. There is even a belief that teenage depression affects infectious disease vulnerability (Pei et al. 2020). Risky acts are very common in young people.
From the varied information, on the symptoms and identifying factors for teenage depression, the survey highlights MDD persists around 2% in boys, 4% amongst girls in between the age 8 to 15 years. The role of nurses plays a crucial part in identifying symptoms of depression and providing adequate care, support and education to the individuals suffering from conditions such as depression. As surveys highlight that although the number of adolescents showing depression is higher, very less number of individuals actually engages in self-management and prevention of the condition. The nurses play a unique role in preventing complications and supporting the patient in having higher confidence of regaining their well-being.
Literature review takes into consideration four objectives in any research process. It takes into consideration the surveys, critical analysis and synthesis of the information in an organised manner so that the researcher can have an in-depth idea of the subject. In this research, the researcher will be adopting the literature review in order to tally the acquired results with the existing theories pertaining to the literature. This is because; the literature review will contain data and critical analysis, the gaps in the cu
ent available information so that the researcher has a better idea on the subject. In addition, a literature review also highlights limitations in the theories as well as point of views of other researchers that play a very important role in the research process.
Search Strategy and Outcome
Databases
For this literature review, a number of databases have been evaluated and searched so that articles and journals relevant to the research topic can be obtained. Some of the reputed research databases and search engines were used for the effective retrieval of research journals. The databases that are used as search engines include Google Scholar, PubMed, ProQuest and NCBI. The researchers will use the google scholar in order to get access to the valid information about the subject matter of the research.
Selection of Materials
The articles that were selected for the study were published in the last eight years between the year 2016 and 2020. The researchers will conduct the research based on the exclusion and inclusion criteria. The articles and the journals, which include the facts about depression, will be included and the rest of the journals will be excluded. While researching we have taken various data analysis and compared to understand the effects of adolescent depression. We have also studied with proper importance the data analysis of the World Health Organisation on Mental Health. We have tried to acquire knowledge through the information of the UK, US and Australia within the period of six months. We have also studied data from other states, how mental health puts its effects in a different geographical region. Moreover, how their people react to different methods and strategies to manage mental health issues (Green et al. 2019). We have also included survey results to get a critical analysis on the said topic and expand the knowledge on depression from a more practical way.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
While searching and selecting for the articles, there were certain inclusion and exclusion criteria that were maintained. The primary aspect, on which the inclusion and exclusion criteria were based, was the country, on which the studies of the adolescent were ca
ied out. For this study, only articles that included articles and observation from the US adolescent population were selected. Further, the articles that were selected for the study were all, new and were published within the last eight years. Hence, only journals and articles that were published between the years 2012 and 2020 were selected for the study.
Papers on the same topic but were published beyond 2012, were rejected due to the possibility of the results being outdated. Further, there were few key terms, which were mandatory in the articles selection process. These key terms include adolescents, depression and mental health. Any paper, journals or articles that lacked these terms were excluded from the study. The idea is to select articles that would help the researcher in establishing the ideas presented by other researchers on depression and its impacts on the adolescent in the UK as well as other countries, such as US, along with Australia.
Rather, the articles that were selected for the study actually helped in linking all the aspects, highlighting the extent the adolescent suffers from depression in UK. Finally, the most important criteria, which the researcher adhered to in verifying the availability of the journals and article, are the availability of the full text rather than only the abstract. As in some articles, only paid subscription can provide the full article, therefore, those journals are rejected and only peer-reviewed fully viewed articles were selected for the study.
Thematic Critical Review
We are analysing the papers that study the concepts of depression and try to figure out the impacts of depression on the mentality of the youngsters. The papers include journals and articles that reveal the statistics and theoretical representations of the factors that might be leading to depression among the adolescents. The articles will be reviewed based on the available literature.
Theme 1: The Extent of Depression in Adolescents
Unipolar depression is one of the most common conditions that are observed among adolescents in different parts of the world. According to Thapar et al. (2012), depression in adolescent has caused a major risk for suicide. In the U.K, over more than half of the adolescent population were found to be suicide victims due to depression. However, the main idea that is being emphasised by Thapar et al. (2012) that more often than not the adolescent depression remains unidentified since it has a prominent reflection in mood changes and i
itability and with a fluctuating symptom within the teenagers.
The internalising as well as externalising psychological symptoms have been researched to observe that one of the impacts of the depression is inconsistency in the academic performance of the adolescents. The developmental trajectories studies revealed that there are close associations of the educational impact due to the psychological symptoms. Most of the researchers support that the external problems that were faced by the adolescents adversely affected the performance of their education due to the development of the related internal problems. In addition, one of the systematic reviews revealed that the causal effect of most of the internal events that affect the educational abilities of adolescents. It included around 8000 Norwegians and ca
ied out a Young HUNT study.
The study resulted in the similar conclusion, which highlighted the increasing adverse impact of depression on the development of several other internal problems, which affected the academic performances of the adolescents. While evaluating the chances of the depression based on the academic performance in between the men and women it was revealed that there was a sudden increase in the population of men with lowering of their grade due to depression. Under this situation, most of the therapists suggest helping the individuals to adjust their childhood SEP and provide psychiatric care under the supervision of the parents. Especially if the adolescent has an immigrant background or if the adolescent IQ level has not been properly attenuated in that case they need special and immediate assistance.
Again, in some of the instances, depression was reflected in other types of behavioural changes that include substance abuse, obesity and the decline in their academic performance, eating disorders and anxiety. While evaluating its persistence, it was observed by the researchers that the prominence of depression is more common in adolescents compared to pre-pubertal children. The articles by Thapar et al. (2012) mostly emphasises on the prevalence of unipolar depression amongst the adolescent population.
As stated by Sonuga-Barke et al. (2016), sometimes, ineffective decision-making ability lays impacts on one’s life satisfaction and impaired ability to function normally. As emphasised by Sonuga-Barke et al. (2016), the more depressed is the adolescent, the more the individuals have the propensity of lacking the ability to make the proper decision. Nevertheless, the poor decision-making ability may not confirm that the individual is suffering from depression. Rather for clinical and professional, the concept is under-researched.
This is because it is very difficult to identify whether the compromised behavioural change is an adolescent mental disorder or simply the change of pubertal hormones. As observed by Sonuga-Barke et al. (2016), there are certain characteristics that can indicate the change in the motivation within the adolescents. For instance, as highlighted by the researchers when a teenager gets an invitation for a party, at her age, the type of decision she takes helps in the evaluation of the mental health of the individuals. Again, for instance, if she finds it hard to decide whether she should attend the party, there is a change that the individual suffers from ADHD but if she does go to the party but then she remains aloof constantly, scrutinising her behaviour.
In that case, she will be assumed to have anxiety or may suffer from symptoms of depression. As most often, it is observed that the complexity in depression can be multifaceted and lay impact on the decision-making ability of the adolescent. While Thapar et al. (2012) was ca
ying out their studies, they observed that, the adolescents, in the low-income countries and in middle-income countries, behave differently, as compared with high-income countries such as in the US.
Theme 2: Trend and Risk Factors of Adolescent Depression in UK
From the research paper by Wenhua (2019), it can be understood that there lies a temporal trend within the depression patterns among the adolescents, which have pushed the growing need of accessing treatments for mental health. In one of the analysis of stratified regression methods, the various trends related to the prevalence of depression in adolescents were analysed based on their race, sex, ethnicity and income groups. The trends further evaluated the various types of psychiatric medication, which the adolescents had access to. This analysis further helped in understanding the extent, to which these medications were impactful. The various stratified analysis of the depression level in the adolescents highlights that each year one in every eleven adolescent suffers from MDE.
The MDE condition is observed to be most prevalent in between 2005 to 2014 with age in between 12 to 20 years. Again, as observed by Raudsepp (2019), there is a lack of proper screening process amongst the population for depression. The developmental stage of an adolescent can be categorised based on the cognitive, biological and psychological changes. Further, in another study by Lin et al. (2016), depression has posed to be one of the leading to disability in high-income countries such as the United States. There have been multiple factors that have been identified before contributing to depression.
The University College London as well as University of Liverpool scientists examined data between two millennial groups born a generation apart. The younger category consisted of more about 11,000 14-year-olds raised in the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2001, accompanied by Millennium Cohort Report. The oldest group consisted of just above 5,600 14-year-olds who had been born in 1991 to 92 within the Bristol region and are now being accompanied by the analysis of Bristol’s Children including its 90s. To allow the millennium party equivalent to the Bristol-born teens, the scientists systematically modified the results. They then examined at the frequency regarding mental ill health, opioid usage, antisocial attitudes, bad sleep habits and obesity disorders in each category (del Vecchio, 2018).
Depression rates soared from 9% for younger adults raised in their early 1990s to almost 15% for all others born at the turning of the millennium. About a generation, self-harm numbers also rose from 12 to 14 percent. Although girls from both classes were most likely to be anxious and to self-harm as boys, the level at which these concerns increased was the exact for both sexes. In comparison, the researchers observed that antisocial activity and use of drugs, known in previous research as indicating impaired teenage mental health, had declined over 10 years (Chen et al. 2020). The number of 14-year-olds who sta
ed or hit others on purpose plummeted from 40 to 28 percent and teens who committed vandalism declined from 6 to 2 percent throughout a generation.
This is claimed to be some of the earliest UK research to compare results from two separate millennial populations to examine the evolving patterns in a variety of mental wellbeing and health-related habits for teenagers (Davidovich et al. 2016). In order to differentiate real shifts in patterns among millennials from variations in the composition of the two cohorts, the researchers
ought into consideration the personal attributes and situations of young people, such as gender, ethnicity including cultural setting. Cu
ently, the youngsters are utilising social media, whether it is Twitter, Facebook or Instagram that have been contributing partly to the development of the identities of the individuals in the social norms. As expressed by Lu et al. (2019), social media has become one of the integral parts of communication with family friends and peers.
The British Secretary of State for Health recently supported the recent demands for the social media companies to control usage more closely in the national discourse about the pros and cons regarding social media usage taking place throughout the UK and a
oad. In this instance, an inquiry by the Chief Medical Officer into...