Adolescent Behavior and Overall Well-Being: Teenage Depression

Teenage Depression
Name
Department, Institution Affiliation
Course Code; Course Name
Instructor’s Name
Date
Teenage Depression
Depression is one of the current issues affecting the youths. Teenage depression denotes mental health problems leading to sadness and losing interest in life among youths. Whereas depression negatively influences how individuals reason, feel, or behave, it instigates physical, functional, and emotional problems. According to Slomski (2018), teenage depression is a life-threatening problem in contemporary society. For example, an empirical study executed by the National Comorbidity between 2001 and 2004 revealed that 11% out of 10,123 teenagers experience depression leading to high drop-outs.
On the other hand, a report composed by the World Health organization in 2015 reveals that about 2.7% of teenagers with 12 to 17 years experienced several depressive episodes. Taquet et al. (2020) explained that teenage depression is the primary cause of teenage suicide, which is the second cause of death in teenagers aged 10 to 24 years. With close relation to the above analysis, the paper discusses teenage depression as a contemporary issue affecting youths, external stress, assessment questions, and support options for victims.
External Stressors
External stressors refer to sources of stress coming from around individuals. Numerous external stressors are linked with depression among teenagers, and bullying is a significant instigator of stressor-related depression. Bullying is a trending problem estimated to negatively affect 20% to 30% of students in the United States of America (USA). Due to increased internet use among teenagers, the problem of bullying has advanced, which affects many youths.
On the other hand, the advancements of the internet and smartphones can enable an individual to bully others anonymously while they continue to harm innocent individuals on the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, among others. About 80% of youths possess social media accounts which increases cyberbullying problems. Social networks such as socio media, peer influencers, and friendly relationships formed between individuals represent a major external stressor. Friendly relationships developed between individuals can lead to depression, especially when one of them is bullied (Slomski, 2018). Typically, teenagers desire to form their identity with age and show little dependence on parents and guardians. It relates that youth embrace the idea of making their own choices and running most of their errand without informing their parents. As a result, they can develop confusion and inner struggle. On the other hand, peer pressure can lead to depression because peer influencers can compel others to engage in unhealthy lifestyle activities such as smoking and drinking alcohol. These issues lead to regret, which can trigger depressive behaviors such as moodiness, irritability, modification in appetites, and inability to concentrate on essential things such as family eating time and studying.
Assessment Strategies
Care providers can use a head-to-toe assessment strategy to screen depression problems among teenagers (Purpora & Prion, 2018). The head-to-toe asses...