Person:

Uchida, Mai

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) among youth is a public health concern. Our aim was to examine the current body of knowledge to better characterize the prevalence and morbidity associated with subthreshold forms of MDD among youth. Given that MDD tends to develop gradually over time, we hypothesized a high prevalence and considerable impairment associated with youth suffering from depressive symptoms that fall short of full, syndromic status.

Methods A literature search was conducted using PubMed exclusively to identify studies assessing the prevalence and clinical characteristics of subthreshold MDD in adolescents.

Results Six scientific papers that met our priori inclusion and exclusion criteria were identified. All papers sampled adolescents. The prevalence of subthreshold MDD ranged from 5% over the past year, to 29% over the two weeks prior to screening. These papers reported clinically significant morbidity associated with subthreshold MDD among adolescents, with evidence for elevated rates of psychiatric comorbidities, impaired functioning in social and familial domains, increased suicidality, and frequent mental health service utilization.

Limitations Though we examined a sizeable and diverse sample, we only identified six cross-sectional informative studies for this review. Variability of subthreshold MDD and major outcome definitions across studies, likely limits the specificity of findings.

Conclusions Subthreshold MDD is prevalent among youth, and is associated with emotional and social impairments that reach the level of obtaining clinical care. These findings could lead to early intervention efforts aimed at mitigating the adverse outcomes associated with subthreshold MDD as well as the progression to full syndrome MDD. Our review documents that regardless of whether progression to full diagnostic status occurs, this condition is morbid.

Objective: Suicide is a leading cause of death for college students. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors of suicide among college students that could improve university services to help prevent college suicide. Method: We conducted a 23-year serial prevalence study of the prevalence and characteristics of death and suicide among 8,262,314 collected data from Japanese college students. We analyzed rates of suicide from 1989-90 through 2011-12 and characterized suicide among this population, focusing on students’ gender, psychiatric, and academic backgrounds to identify risk factors for suicide. Results: Suicide rates increased throughout the 23 years, and suicide has been the leading cause of death every year since 1996. Suicide consisted 42.4% of all deaths that happened in the 23 years. Males, medicine majors, students in the final year of their program and students who completed extra years of schooling or took academic leaves of absence were at higher risk for suicide. Only 16.4% had received an official psychiatric diagnosis and 16.0% had received services through the university health center prior to the suicides. Conclusion: Results suggest the need for a stronger support system for college students. Areas for improvement could include better advertising of the mental health services, student and staff education about suicide risk factors, and mentorship and outreach programs for students in their final year of classes, those majoring in medicine, and those who have taken leaves of absence or failed classes.