REVIEW of

Teen Depression and Suicide

A Silent Crisis

By Maureen Kroning with Kayla Kroning

Suicide is affecting our youth today, and unless there is more awareness and prevention,

suicide will continue to take the lives of our youth.

Depression is a famous issue facing a large amount of people today. It became notably

known that depression has become common among many individuals in adolescent stage.

Depression today seems to have become a synonym for sadness. Though many people with

depression tend to struggle with sadness, it is in itself a mental health problem and not just your

everyday unhappiness. It’s a disease that afflicts the human psyche in such a way that the

afflicted tend to act and react abnormally towards others and themselves. Thus, it comes to no

surprise to find out that adolescent depression is strongly linked to teen suicide. Adolescent

suicide is now accountable for more deaths in youths aged 15 to 19 than any cardiovascular

disease or cancer. Regardless of this increased suicide rate, depression in this age group is highly

underdiagnosed and leads to serious difficulties in school, work and personal judgement which

may often continue into adulthood.

Depression and thoughts of suicide are common, but can be treated. It is crucial to get

help to manage depression and prevent suicide. If you think your child is depressed or at risk of

suicide, talk to your doctor. Teen suicide is when a child ends his or her own life. It can be
impulsive or planned. Not all suicide attempts lead to death. In fact, it doesn’t always mean your

child wants to die. It could be their way of calling for help, anyone can struggle with suicide.

The causes of Depression, Heredity plays a significant role, Depressed individuals often

are direct family members of others who suffer from depression. Many things can contribute to

clinical depression. For some people, a number of factors seem to be involved, while for others a

single factor can cause the illness. Oftentimes, people become depressed for no apparent reason.

Many depressed individuals cannot imagine being happy again. They feel unbearable emotional,

and some-times physical, pain that seems to have only two options: dying or living with pain.

Depression has a lot of symptoms and under symptoms It has different classifications, so far

symptoms Depressed mood indicated by depressed person or report of others. Characterized by

sadness, emptiness, hopelessness, irritability, or restlessness, markedly diminished interest or

pleasure in all or almost all activities. Significant weight loss when not dieting, or weight gain

Inability to sleep, or oversleeping, Psychomotor agitation or retardation, and Fatigue or loss of

energy Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional),

Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, Recurrent thoughts of death,

recurrent suicidal ideation, with or without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt. Due to

depression the people who experience this also experience clinically significant distress in social

functioning, they become isolated because of this problem they don’t have the instinct to attend

regular social engagements, depression also affects the work place and it is called Occupational

functioning, due to this problem the person doesn’t have the guts to go to work and can pass a

poor performance in their work. And for the last Physical functioning, He or she feels bad about
everything like headaches, cramps, pain and digestive problems in this function what truly

affects you is your body or our physical strength.

Suicide attempts in adolescent Depression, in table 3 national youth risk behavior survey

2013 shows the percentage of high school students there are 11.6 % of males and 22.4 females

who seriously considered attempting suicide, 5.4% males and 10.6% females in total attempted

suicide, 20.8% males and 39.1% females who felt sad and hopeless and 10.3% males and 16.9 of

females really Made a plan about how they would attempt suicide. Teenagers struggle with

school, grades, family, friends, and their identity every day. Bullying is a serious problem, that

contributes a lot in teen depression. Bullying can happen at school, at home or online and It is

never okay and this is not a normal part of growing up.

Knowing the risk factors, warning signs, and asking if a teen has been thinking about

suicide can help us prevent suicide and adults, peers or anyone can help preventing suicide. Risk

also is greater if warning signs are new and have increased, or are possibly related to an

anticipated or actual painful event, loss, or change (Youth Suicide Warning Signs, n.d.). there are

lots of ways to prevent suicide and depression an example of a risk factor for us is a recent or

serious loss. Losing a love one or special someone in their lives it may be a family member, a

friend or a pet. Alcohol and other substance use disorders, Struggling with sexual orientation,

family history of suicide,  low self-esteem and Bullying. Part of preventing this is also having the

right medication to stop these happenings to the youth or to our society as whole, the first step to

prevent teen suicide is recognizing and treating depression. Depression is very treatable, with the

overwhelming majority of those who seek treatment showing improvement and it is said that the
combination of proactive support, mood elevating medications, and psychotherapy is Cognitive

Behavioral Therapy so The earlier treatment is started, the better the response to treatment.

Selective serotonin

reuptake inhibitors, Serotonin modulators (5-HT2 blockers, Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake

inhibitors 5, Heterocyclic antidepressants (tricyclics).

Warning signs of suicide, suicide is an action that has a huge mark on the mind of the

whole nation or world because of the elevated numbers of people of committed suicide each

year. These are the warning signs of suicide that we should always keep to our minds so if you

notice someone showing this kind of action or doing you can help them. 1 st is when they’re

talking about wanting to die or to kill oneself. 2nd when they’re looking for a way to kill oneself,

like searching online or buying a gun, 3rd talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to

live. 4th Displaying severe/overwhelming emotional pain or distress talking about feeling trapped

or in unbearable pain, 5th Talking about being a burden to others, 6th the increasing use of

alcohol or drugs, 7th Acting anxious or agitated; behaving recklessly,8th Anger or hostility that

seems out of character or out of context, 9th Sleeping too little or too much, 10th Withdrawn or

feeling isolated change in social connections/situations, 11th Showing rage or talking about

seeking revenge, 12th Displaying extreme mood swings. 13th Preoccupation with death, 14th

Suddenly happier, calmer 15th Loss of interest in things previously cared about 16th Visiting or

calling people to say goodbye. We included this warning signs to let us know when we can do to

help people that are seeking for encouragement and guidance and also a friend. doing a simple

gesture like asking if they are fine or okay is a great help for them starting a conversation with

them is also a good start talking and keeping them company can make them realize that they are
special and loved. Nurses are the nation’s largest group of healthcare providers, we really admire

nurses all over the world and in our country because of their strong personalities and that is why

nurses has a huge impact on teen depression and suicide. Because of the training and support and

education to patients, families, the public, and schools to promote protective mechanisms for

depression, Nurses are also advocates of this problem that we are facing and that is suicide and

depression, our school nurses or professional doctors can be a strong advocate of this also

because they can be strict or add some rules s that address crisis intervention or evaluation and

treatment.

In our article Teen Depression and suicide, a silent crisis. The said concepts, ideas,

theories, arguments are evident and understandable. But we found other theories from other

sources that can add more ideas or more theories about Depression. This article has a massive

amount of ideas that can really benefit and can give guidance to the people that is facing these

disorder and hardships in their lives, but we realized that this article can stand alone because of

its precise definite words, elaborated examples and different tables that shows the different topics

about depression. For table one, they clarified the different signs and symptoms of a major

depressive disorder (major depression), For table 2 depressive disorders in the dsm-5, Table 3

national youth risk behavior survey 2013: percentages of High school students who felt

sad/hopeless and had suicidality, by Gender and ethnicity, Table 4 Medications used to treat

depression, and for the last table they elaborated about the warning signs of suicide. This tables

that are present on the article can make the readers or the viewers more interested in the topics

shown, because it can add more factors to the viewer to read and further determine the main idea

of this article. This article didn’t give any theories about teen depression and suicide. But the
article had an impressive idea or concepts about depression. The whole content of the article had

a great impact in our part because the ideas are well constructed and was evidently stated. This

essay is all about a teenager caused his or her own death on purpose. Before trying to take their

own life, a teen may have thoughts of wanting to die. This is called suicidal ideation or simply

Suicide. He or she may also have suicidal behavior. That’s when a teen is focused on doing

things that cause his or her own death. This article is also all about a best friend regretting not

being able to change that horrible morning when she received the news of her best friend’s

suicide. This problem is the reality we are facing today, according to World Health Organization

(WHO, 2015) reports that worldwide, over 350 million people suffer from depression, making it

the leading cause of disability and contributor to the overall global burden of disease.

Due to Depression people lose their pleasure from their own daily living, it can

complicate other medical conditions, and can even be serious enough to lead to suicide. What we

really want to voice out in regards of this growing problem and issue of this society is

Awareness, rising awareness to our society is a huge factor to limit depression and suicide,

because having a right taught about these problems can make us open minded and also open to

other people, Awareness is the key to the right door to the perfect pathway of our lives. Our

society should add more prominent programs, active organizations and seminars about this

matter, for people to become an activist that can share this different knowledge to other people

so they can have the idea about this issue and matter. We really want to showcase the people

who really have the idea about this circumstance and the people who wants to have the

knowledge about this matter, and being an activist is really a big help to our society and to this
problem, because an activist is aware of what he/she sharing to other people and wants to spread

his/her knowledge to others.

Depression is a mood disorder which prevents individuals from leading a normal life, at

work socially or within their family. Seligman (1973) referred to depression as the ‘common

cold’ of psychiatry because of its frequency of diagnosis. The theory of Behaviorist it

emphasizes the importance of the environment in shaping behavior. The focus is on observable

behavior and the conditions through which individuals learn behavior, namely classical

conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory. Therefore, depression is the result

of a person's interaction with their environment. Operant conditioning states that depression is

caused by the removal of positive reinforcement from the environment (Lewinsohn, 1974).

Certain events, such as losing your job, induce depression because they reduce positive

reinforcement from others. Psychodynamic Theory nwardly directed anger (Freud, 1917),

introjection of love object loss,severe super-ego demands (Freud, 1917),excessive narcissistic,

oral and/or anal personality need (Chodoff, 1972), loss of self-esteem (Bibring, 1953; Fenichel,

1968), and deprivation in the mother child relationship during the first year (Kleine, 1934). In

our article there are no theories stated but they provided different types of medications that can

help the people who are depressed to be able to lessen the amount of people who commits

suicide every day, these theories can help us know what scientist think about suicide and also

depression, and how they study these cases that now has a high impact in the whole world. Our

article has a lot of the same ideas in other articles but there are some concepts that lacks in our

article in that is the theories.

 Depression is a sickness which an individual lost their way of living. Many factors

increase the risk, of developing teen depression including having issues that makes an impact on

your self-esteem such as: being fat, long term bullying, nerd, poor, and many more. We can stop

depression by the programs that are made to help teens in depression. Parents should listen or

have time with their sons/ daughters they need to know and how to help them. Make them feel

that they are loved, wanted, and accepted, by that they would feel safe and happy. Making

awareness programs would really be a big help to teen depression, start taking medications, and

as a friend being there with them and helping them when they would need help will be a source

of light for them to regain their social life. Depression is a mental disorder that is pervasive in the

world and affects us all. Unlike many large- scale international problems, a solution for

depression is at hand. Efficacious and treatments are available to improve the health and the lives

of the millions of people around the world suffering from depression. On an individual,

community, and national level, it is time to educate ourselves about depression and support those

who are suffering from this mental disorder.

SAGARAL, SHARIFA ZAM-ZAM M.

HAMSIRANI, ANNIKA S.

12 –STEM DAGALEA

REFERENCES:

[1]  McLeod, Saul (2015) Psychological Theories of Depression

https://www.simplypsychology.org/depression.html

[2] High Focus Centers (2018)

https://highfocuscenters.pyramidhealthcarepa.com/increase-awareness-depression-suicide-

everyday-life/

[3] Mental Health America, Inc. (2019)

https://www.mhanational.org/conditions/depression

[4] Resnick, Brian (2019)

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/2/28/18234667/teen-suicide-prevention

[5] Stanford Children’s Hospital (2019)

https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=teen-suicide-90-P02584