Who gets depressed?
- Depression is very common.
- Between 5 and 10 per cent of the population are suffering from the illness to some extent at any one time.
- Over a lifetime you have a 20 per cent, or one in five, chance of having an episode of depression.
- Women are twice as likely to get depression as men.
- Bipolar affective disorder is less common than depressive illness with a life-time risk of around 1-2 per cent. Men and women are equally affected.
Getting depression is not a sign of weakness. There are no particular 'personality types' that are more at risk than others. However, some risk factors have been identified, these include inherited (genetic) factors, such as having parents or grandparents who have suffered from depression and non-genetic factors such as the death of a parent when you were young.
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