Facts About Clinical Depression

Clinical depression is a mental health disorder that affects millions of people every year. More than just a few days of feeling blue, the illness causes persistent symptoms and behavior over time that can lead to missed work days, feelings of worthlessness and possibly suicidal behavior. Medical and mental health experts have conducted considerable research on depression to better understand and treat the disease.

• Clinical depression is one of the severe forms of depression also referred to as "major depressive disorder" or "major depression."

• Clinical depression is characterized by having five or more of the following symptoms over a two-week period: depressed mood for most of the day, significant weight gain or loss, sleeping too much or not enough, loss of pleasure or interest in usual activities, fatigue or low energy, slowed thinking or movement, loss of focus or indecisiveness, and frequent thoughts of suicide or death.

• It is estimated that 17.5 million Americans have some form of depression. Of that number, 9.2 million adults have clinical depression, according to the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. That is about 5 percent of the country's population.

• By 2020, the World Health Organization has projected that depression will be the second-leading cause of lost years in a healthy life-span. The organization estimates about 121 million people suffer from depression worldwide.

• Several factors can cause clinical depression. The causes can be biological, cognitive, co-occurrence with other serious illnesses, medication side effects, genetic and situational. Gender also plays a role as women are diagnosed with clinical depression twice as much as men.

• Depression has an economic impact. About $30.4 billion is lost every year in the U.S. when employees miss work due to depression symptoms and time off needed to seek treatment.

• Support groups, medication and talk therapy can successfully treat 60 to 80 percent of people suffering from clinical depression. However, only 25 percent of people suffering from the illness around the world have access to suitable treatment, according to WHO.