How often do depressions occur?

TINEKE OLDHINKEL: You just learned how to recognise depression. Now, let’s have a look at how often depression’s occur and at what age. This picture shows how many young people have or have had depression. There’s very few young children with depression, but this picture changes rapidly after puberty. By the age of 18, over 15% of the teenagers have had a depression already. As you can see, depression is more common in girls than in boys. About one out of every five girls gets depressed and about one out of every 10 boys. So quite a lot of teenagers get a depression. But not everyone who was ever depressed will be depressed all the time. Thankfully, not.

If you went out on the street and asked teens whether or not they are feeling depressed, about 1 in 35 would say yes. In order words, chances are in this group at least one person is depressed.