Adolescent depression and the treatment gap
Authors: Frances Rice, Olga Eyre, Lucy Riglin, Robert Potter
Journal: The Lancet Psychiatry (2017)

Adolescence is an important risk period for the development of depression, when the rates of major depressive disorder and symptoms of depression rise markedly.1Thapar A Collishaw S Pine DS Thapar AK Depression in adolescence.Lancet. 2012; 379: 1056-1067Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1245) Google Scholar Depressive symptoms and disorders are common in adolescence and are associated with poor long-term mental health, social, and educational outcomes. Adolescent major depressive disorder is often unrecognised and untreated despite evidence that duration of untreated depressive illness is a key factor in predicting recurrence in adult life.2Patton GC Coffey C Romaniuk H et al.The prognosis of common mental disorders in adolescents: a 14-year prospective cohort study.Lancet. 2014; 383: 1404-1411Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (305) Google Scholar An Article3Neufeld SAS Dunn VJ Jones PB Croudace TJ Goodyer IM Reduction in adolescent depression following contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UK.Lancet Psychiatry. 2017; (published online Jan 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30002-0PubMed Google Scholar in this issue of Lancet Psychiatry shows the beneficial effect of mental health service contact during adolescence on subsequent depressive symptomatology. In a longitudinal community study, Neufeld and colleagues3Neufeld SAS Dunn VJ Jones PB Croudace TJ Goodyer IM Reduction in adolescent depression following contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UK.Lancet Psychiatry. 2017; (published online Jan 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30002-0PubMed Google Scholar show that, among adolescents aged 14 years with a DSM-IV psychiatric disorder, use of mental health services substantially reduces depressive symptomatology at the 36-month follow-up. Thus, by age 17 years, the odds of adolescents who had a disorder but did not contact mental health services reporting symptoms of depression in the clinical range was seven times higher than in adolescents who did access services. Importantly, these findings were generated using statistical methods that balance confounders across intervention and control groups (similar to what is done in randomised controlled trials). Depression has a complex multifactorial aetiology involving both genetic and social risk factors.1Thapar A Collishaw S Pine DS Thapar AK Depression in adolescence.Lancet. 2012; 379: 1056-1067Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1245) Google Scholar Clinical symptoms or disorders can also act as precursors for depression. For example, low mood, anxiety, oppositional behaviour, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder have all individually been found to precede depression.4Rice F Sellers R Hammerton G et al.Antecedents of new-onset major depressive disorder in children and adolescents at high familial risk.JAMA Psychiatry. 2016; (published online Dec 7.)DOI:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.3140Google Scholar, 5Daviss WB A Review of co-morbid depression in pediatric ADHD: etiologies, phenomenology, and treatment.J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol. 2008; 18: 565-571Crossref PubMed Scopus (168) Google Scholar In the study by Neufeld and colleagues,3Neufeld SAS Dunn VJ Jones PB Croudace TJ Goodyer IM Reduction in adolescent depression following contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UK.Lancet Psychiatry. 2017; (published online Jan 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30002-0PubMed Google Scholar contact with mental health services resulted in an improvement in symptoms of depression in a group with a range of diagnoses. This improvement is noteworthy and raises the question of how long-term beneficial effects on symptoms of depression came about for a seemingly disparate group of individuals. It would be informative to see if the beneficial effect on symptoms of depression was driven by a particular diagnostic group. Clearly, it was beyond the scope of the present paper to assess the mechanisms involved in how symptoms were reduced. Nonetheless, it could be worthwhile to speculate about potential mechanisms to help identify the mechanisms of treatment effects.6Kraemer HC Stice E Kazdin A Kupfer D How do risk factors work together? Mediators, moderators, and independent, overlapping, and proxy risk factors.Am J Psychiatry. 2001; 158: 848-856Crossref PubMed Scopus (1281) Google Scholar These might differ depending on whether symptoms of depression are the primary or secondary presenting complaint. Interpersonal stress and relationships (with family, peers, and teachers), self-representations, and engagement in enjoyable activities are all thought to be important in the development of depressive symptomatology, and functioning in these areas might also be affected by a range of disorders. For example, oppositional and neurodevelopmental problems can lead to profound social and academic failures, affecting self-beliefs, interpersonal relationships, and vulnerability to depression.7Capaldi DM Co-occurrence of conduct problems and depressive symptoms in early adolescent boys: II. A 2-year follow-up at grade 8.Dev Psychopathol. 1992; 4: 125-144Crossref Scopus (306) Google Scholar Effectively treating a range of psychiatric difficulties could potentially result in an amelioration of symptoms of depression over time.8Chang Z D'Onofrio BM Quinn PD Lichtenstein P Larsson H Medication for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and risk for depression: a nationwide longitudinal cohort study.Biol Psychiatry. 2016; 80: 916-922Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (70) Google Scholar The pathways involved in the long-term beneficial effects on depressive symptomatology observed in the Neufeld study3Neufeld SAS Dunn VJ Jones PB Croudace TJ Goodyer IM Reduction in adolescent depression following contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UK.Lancet Psychiatry. 2017; (published online Jan 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30002-0PubMed Google Scholar are not currently understood. It seems probable that there will be multiple mechanisms, and investigating whether mechanisms differ for depression compared with other symptom outcomes might shed light on the mechanisms of interventions. Many teenagers with a psychiatric disorder do not access or receive interventions. Most (62%) of the individuals with a psychiatric disorder in the study by Neufeld and colleagues3Neufeld SAS Dunn VJ Jones PB Croudace TJ Goodyer IM Reduction in adolescent depression following contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UK.Lancet Psychiatry. 2017; (published online Jan 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30002-0PubMed Google Scholar had not accessed any mental health services in the past year. These individuals showed fewer antisocial traits and disorders, more anxiety disorders, and less comorbidity than those accessing treatment. This outcome suggests that individuals with particular diagnoses (ie, anxiety) might be less likely to access services, but is also consistent with the threshold for access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) being high and typically involving more complex cases with high levels of comorbidity and impairment. Notably, the beneficial effects of contact with mental health services on later depressive symptoms in the study3Neufeld SAS Dunn VJ Jones PB Croudace TJ Goodyer IM Reduction in adolescent depression following contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UK.Lancet Psychiatry. 2017; (published online Jan 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30002-0PubMed Google Scholar were restricted to those that met diagnostic criteria for a psychiatric disorder (or had high subthreshold symptoms plus functional impairment). This finding illustrates that diagnostic status is a good proxy for how well young people respond to treatment at least as far as depressive symptoms are concerned, which suggests that children with mental health symptoms should be adequately assessed to determine access to specialist CAMHS and therapeutic intervention. Thus, training, tools, and resources to support potential referrers in detecting key psychiatric symptoms and functional impairment might help increase the proportion of referrals to specialist mental health services when young people have a clear clinical need. These referrals might also help to address the treatment gap when significant numbers of young people with a diagnosis do not access services. In conclusion, the study by Neufeld and colleagues is important in empirically showing the long-term beneficial effects of prompt treatment of adolescent mental health problems and provides hope that the benefits could be achieved with interventions of relatively short duration. LR reports grants from the Medical Research Council. OE reports other from the Wellcome Trust. The other authors declare no competing interests. Reduction in adolescent depression after contact with mental health services: a longitudinal cohort study in the UKOur findings show that contact with mental health services at age 14 years by adolescents with a mental disorder reduced the likelihood of depression by age 17 years. This finding supports the improvement of access to adolescent mental health services. Full-Text PDF Open Access