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IN FOCUS / 2017-04-04
More and more children and young people suffer from depression
On the occasion of World Health Day on 7 April, this year the World Health Organization (WHO) has put the focus on depression. In Germany, roughly 263,000 patients suffering from depression received full in-patient treatment in 2015. The number of treatment cases more than doubled since the turn of the millennium when there were 110,000 cases.
The patients treated included roughly 4,600 children and young people under 15 years who received in-patient treatment due to depression. Although their proportion in the total of treatment cases was rather small (2%), the increase in the absolute number of cases in this age group was particularly strong in the last few years. Compared with 2000, the number increased more than tenfold (2000: 410 cases).
In the age group of the 15 to 24 year olds, too, a large increase was observed: In 2000, there were roughly 5,200 patients treated on a full in-patient basis, while the number was nearly seven times as high (roughly 34,300) in 2015.