Wash­ing­ton DC-De­pres­sion af­fects more peo­ple than any oth­er men­tal dis­or­der and is al­so one of the world's lead­ing caus­es of dis­abil­i­ty. Al­though it is a treat­able dis­ease, six out of every ten peo­ple who have de­pres­sion in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean do not seek or do not re­ceive the treat­ment they need.

On World Men­tal Health Day, which is held an­nu­al­ly on Oc­to­ber 10, the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion/World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO/WHO) joins with the World Fed­er­a­tion for Men­tal Health (WFMH) to in­crease aware­ness about this dis­or­der that af­fects more than 350 mil­lion peo­ple of all ages around the world.

In Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, de­pres­sion af­fects five per cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion. "This is a dis­or­der that can strike any­one at some point in their life, and for which they need to re­ceive psy­cho­log­i­cal and so­cial care and sup­port," ac­cord­ing to the PA­HO/WHO prin­ci­pal ad­vis­er on Men­tal Health, Jorge Ro­driguez.

In ad­di­tion to in­flu­enc­ing the ill per­son, de­pres­sion al­so af­fects their fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty around them. In the worst cas­es, it can lead to sui­cide. Each year, al­most 1 mil­lion peo­ple kill them­selves in the world, of which around 63,000 are in the Amer­i­c­as. "In hu­man terms, it rep­re­sents suf­fer­ing and in eco­nom­ic terms it in­volves con­sid­er­able costs to fam­i­lies and to gov­ern­ments," said Ro­driguez.

"De­pres­sion: A Glob­al Cri­sis" is the theme cho­sen for this year, to ad­vo­cate for recog­nis­ing the dis­ease and ad­dress­ing it. Be­cause of the stig­ma suf­fered by peo­ple with de­pres­sion, many suf­fer­ers hide it or do not talk about it and even avoid treat­ment. WHO pre­pared a cam­paign that in­cludes pam­phlets and a video on "the black dog of de­pres­sion," to call at­ten­tion to this pub­lic health prob­lem. Be­tween 60 per cent and 65 per cent of ill peo­ple do not re­ceive care.

The lack of ap­pro­pri­ate ser­vices; of trained health pro­fes­sion­als, es­pe­cial­ly in pri­ma­ry care; and the so­cial stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with men­tal dis­or­ders are some of the bar­ri­ers to ac­cess to ap­pro­pri­ate care, in ad­di­tion to the need for boost­ing ca­pac­i­ty for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and ear­ly treat­ment of de­pres­sion. In the re­gion, it is cal­cu­lat­ed that less than two per cent of the health bud­get is al­lo­cat­ed to men­tal health, and of this, 67 per cent is spent on men­tal hos­pi­tals.

De­pres­sion is more com­mon in women than in men. Be­tween two and four of every ten moth­ers in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries suf­fer from de­pres­sion dur­ing preg­nan­cy or af­ter child­birth.

This dis­ease has a good prog­no­sis if it is treat­ed in time and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. De­pres­sion can be mild, mod­er­ate, or se­vere, and is caused by a com­plex in­ter­ac­tion of so­cial, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and bi­o­log­i­cal fac­tors. How­ev­er, "we must aban­don the idea that all de­pres­sion needs phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal treat­ment.

Mild and even some mod­er­ate cas­es can be re­solved, ba­si­cal­ly, with so­cial and fam­i­ly sup­port, brief psy­chother­a­py, or oth­er types of psy­choso­cial in­ter­ven­tions that can be pro­vid­ed by pri­ma­ry health care physi­cians or by com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions that pro­vide sup­port for peo­ple," ex­plained Ro­driguez.

Men­tal health and de­pres­sion in num­bers:

• It is cal­cu­lat­ed that 25 per cent of peo­ple suf­fer from one or more men­tal or be­hav­iour­al dis­or­ders in their life­time.

• Men­tal and neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders ac­count for 14 per cent of the glob­al bur­den of dis­ease in the world and 22 per cent in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

• More than 350 mil­lion peo­ple of all ages suf­fer from de­pres­sion in the world. In Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, five per cent of the adult pop­u­la­tion suf­fers from it.

• From 60 per cent to 65 per cent of peo­ple who need care for de­pres­sion in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean do not re­ceive it.

• Each year, around one mil­lion peo­ple die from sui­cide in the world, of which some 63,000 are in the Amer­i­c­as.

• De­pres­sion is the most com­mon men­tal dis­or­der in the world.

• Among men­tal dis­or­ders in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, de­pres­sion is the most com­mon (5 per cent), fol­lowed by anx­i­ety dis­or­der (3.4 per cent), dys­thymia (1.7 per cent), ob­ses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der (1.4per cent), pan­ic dis­or­der and non-af­fec­tive psy­choses (1 per cent each), and bipo­lar dis­or­der (0.8 per cent), among oth­ers.