Francisco, Demi Anne S.

III-C1 Abnormal Psychology

1. Global and Local Prevalence of Mood Disorders

A mood disorder is a type of psychopathy that affects an individual's emotional state. It is a mental
illness within which someone has experience prolonged periods of excessive happiness, misery,
or both. Mood disorders has a huge impact in someone’s life as a person’s behavior tend to
change overtime, it may also affect one’s coping ability and day to day routine such as work, doing
recreational activities and a person’s social life in general. Two of the foremost modality disorders
are depression and bipolar disorder.

According to new research, the share of population with depression ranges mostly between 2%
and 6% around the world today. Globally, older individuals (in the 70 years and older age bracket)
have a higher risk of depression relative to other age groups. In 2017, an estimated 264 million
people in the world experienced depression. In all countries the median estimate for the
prevalence of depression is higher for women than for men. (Dattani et al., 2021)
 On the other hand, the situational assessment conducted by the World Health Organization
Initiative in the Philippines showed the prevalence and coverage of major depressive disorder and
bipolar disorder.

Prevalence Total Gender Ratio Treatment Coverage

Major
1.2% females
depressive 1.1% 1,145,871 0.8%
1.1% males
disorder
Bipolar 0.2% females
0.2% 520,614 5.0%
disorder 0.5% males

A data from the Philippine World Health Organization (WHO) Special Initiative for Mental Health
conducted in 2020 showed that ≥3.6 million Filipinos suffer from at least one kind of mental,
neurological, or substance use disorder (Department of Health, 2020). Consequently, mental
illness has become the third most common disability in the Philippines, wherein six million
Filipinos live with depression and anxiety. (Martinez et al., 2020).

2. Rates of Depression in the Pandemic

In research from Puyat et al. (2021), it is concluded that the rates of depression is close to 1 in
10 young adults (8.9%) in the Philippines experience moderate to severe depressive symptoms.
Policies and mental health resources are needed to support young adults who are experiencing
moderate to severe depressive symptoms. the data from a 2013 nationwide probability survey
of 19,017 respondents, during the beginning of the COVID-19 in the Philippines, 1/6th
respondents reported moderate-to-severe depression and psychological impact of the outbreak.
Female gender, youth age of 12-21 years, single status, students, presence of specific physical
symptoms (i.e., headache, cough, chills), recent imposed quarantine by a health authority,
prolonged stay at home, poor self-reported health status, feeling of too much unnecessary
worry has been made about COVID-19, concerns about family members getting sick, and feeling
of being discriminated by other countries were associated with a greater psychological impact of
the pandemic and higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression. Timely and accurate health
information, having children older than 16 years old, perception of good health status and
confidence in their own health care providers were associated with lesser psychological impact
of the pandemic and lower levels of stress, anxiety and depression.

3. Languishing
Languishing is having a feeling of uncertainty about sadness or being disconnected. It is when
you know that there’s something wrong or something’s happening but you’re not sure about it.
Unable to find the right words to describe how you feel. The concept of languishing is focused
on the absence of mental wellness. It’s also associated with lack of positive view about life and
that may lead you to experience mental and emotional challenges. Some of us may experience
languishing especially during this time of pandemic where we’re unsure about our feelings and
our mental health.
4. Suicide rates across countries age and sex

The data below is based from the Global Health Estimates for Suicide conducted by World
Health Organization.

The global age-standardized suicide rate was higher in males (13.7 per 100 000) than in females
(7.5 per 100 000) (Figures 2 and 3). While for females, the highest rates in countries were above
30 per 100 000. (Figure 2), for males they were above 45 per 100 000 (Figure 3).

Globally, the age-standardized suicide rate was 1.8 times higher in males than in females.
Male:female (M:F) suicide ratios greater than 1 indicate that suicide rates are higher in males
than in females. While the M:F ratio is close to 3 in high-income countries (i.e. the rates are
three times higher in males), the ratio was more equal in low- and middle-income countries. The
only countries where the suicide rate was estimated to be higher in females than in males were
Bangladesh, China, Lesotho, Morocco, and Myanmar (Figure 4).
Regarding age, more than half (52.1%) of global suicides occurred before the age of 45 years.
Most adolescents who died by suicide (90%) were from low- and middle-income countries
where nearly 90% of the world’s adolescents live.
 References

Dattani, S., Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021, April). Mental Health. Our World in Data.
https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health#citation

Maravilla, N. M. A., & Tan, M. J. (2021). Philippine Mental Health Act: Just an Act? A Call to
Look Into the Bi-directionality of Mental Health and Economy. Frontiers in Psychology.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.706483/full

Mood Disorders; Causes, Symptoms, Management & Treatment. (2021, July). Cleveland Clinic.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17843-mood-disorders

World Health Organization & Global Mental Health University of Washington. (2020, March).
Special Initiative for Mental Health Philippines. https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/mental-health/special-initiative/who-special-initiative-country-brief-report---
philippines---2020-04-23-brief.pdf?sfvrsn=136a74f3_4

Puyat, J., Conaco, M. C., Nativadad, J., & Banal, M. A. (2021, January). Depressive symptoms
among young adults in the Philippines: Results from a nationwide cross-sectional survey.
Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666915320300731

World Health Organization (2018). Global Health Estimates 2016: Deaths by cause, age, sex, by
country and by region, 2000-2016. World Health Organization, Geneva.

World Health Organization (2018). National suicide prevention strategies: progress, examples
and indicators. World Health Organization, Geneva.

World Health Organization (2014). Preventing suicide: a global imperative. World Health
Organization, Geneva.