Depression in Childhood

Although depression in adulthood has long been viewed as a serious and impairing disorder, depression has been recognized as a disorder of childhood only since the 1980s. In this overview, the following topics for depression in youth are briefly reviewed: diagnostic criteria, prevalence rates and clinical course, common comorbidities, and etiology and risk factors.

Diagnostic Criteria

Depression is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple forms of the disorder. There are two main forms of depression defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5): (1) major depressive disorder (MDD) and (2) persistent depressive disorder (PDD). PDD is a new category in the DSM-5 and encapsulates chronic forms of MDD as well as dysthymia, a diagnosis that was in prior editions of the DSM. ...

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