Common Statistics of Dysthymia

Dysthymic disorder, also known as dysthymia, is a persistent mild depression disorder which lasts for longer periods of time, usually for a duration of at least two years in adults and one year in adolescents and children. People of this disorder remain moody always and display symptoms such as sleep disorders, low self-esteem, disorientation, apathy, attention disabilities, indecisiveness, dietary disturbances, etc. These symptoms cause a person to have disturbed social life, professional difficulties, academic inadequacies, family problems, etc. This disorder may build up early in people, but they wait, on an average, for ten years before they go for treatment.

The depressed state may recur and abate, interspersed with periods of well-being and sadness. It may also be associated with severe depressive disorder and is called ‘double depression’. It is estimated that dysthymia affects about 3% of population and it is found to be prevalent more in women than in men. It is estimated that about 5.4 percent of the American people aged 18 years and above, suffer from dysthymia during their life span. This means that about 10.9 million Americans have this illness. Dysthymia commonly affects young people who are in their late teens and all those people below the age of thirty are more prone to this disorder. This disorder is linked to drug overuse, tobacco usage, alcohol dependence and other obsessions.

Women are found to be ill with from this disorder more often than men. About 6.5% of women endure this disorder, compared with percentage of men which is 3.3%. This means that about 6.7 million women and 3.2 million men in America undergo this illness.

Dysthymia Statistics of Children

Children with dysthymic disorder are vulnerable to future occurrence of severe depressive disorder and also bipolar disorder. It is estimated that about 70% of children who have dysthymic disorder, also likely to get severe depressive disorder within first five years. An average of about 50% of these child patients also suffer from other mental illnesses; The relevant figures are: anxiety disorders affects about 40% of children, behavioral disorder will have an effect on 30% of the children, about 24% suffer from ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder), and eliminations disorders, such as encopresis and enuresis, affect 15% of children. About 15% of child patients of dysthymia also suffer from 2 or more comorbid disorders.

Majority of depressed children suffer repetition and about 40% of them have relapse within 2 years and by adulthood, this figure reaches 70%. Depressed children before age of their puberty are vulnerable to suffer some type of mental disorder in their adulthood, while post-puberty children who develop depression are prone to suffer another bout of depression.

Studies have shown that family record of prevalence of depression was observed in 20%-50% of depressed children and adolescents. Children, whose parents are depressed, are three times more prone than children of normal parents. In other words, the approximations of the percentages of depressed parents who have a depressed child differ from 16%-50%. One is not entirely certain whether genetics play a definite role in parent and child depressions or whether depressed parents and their erratic behavior act as causative factors of depression in children.

The incidence of dysthymic disorder in teenagers has been around 3 percent. The chances of getting symptoms of depressive as well as dysthymic disorder are same for both boys and girls before puberty. But post-puberty, i.e., after age 15, the depressive disorder in girls become two times more common than boys of the same age.

There are no reliable diagnostic testing procedures to gauge this disorder. But, some laboratory tests may help in diagnosis. Sleep EEG (electroencephalography) extremities are observed in 25%-50% of adolescents with this illness. The sleep abnormalities are decreased REM (rapid eye movement), elevated REM density, disturbed sleep, etc.

Dysthymia may last, on an average, for 30 years in adults. Only 41.3% of people with disorder are estimated to have got treatment with antidepressants and about 56.1% of depressed people are treated with psychotherapy. A recent study showed that 77% of the depressed people had consulted a physician, and 17% were treated for depression. This shows that proper diagnosis is not being followed or that the patient’s depression symptoms are being mistaken as those belonging to some other illnesses.