March 16, 2018 – Depression and Teens

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Anchor lead: Can an educational program about depression help teenagers with the condition? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Depression education for young people helps those with the condition as well as those others think may be depressed speak up, an analysis of a Johns Hopkins program developed and led by Karen Swartz, a psychiatrist at Hopkins, has found. The program, known by the acronym ADAP, for adolescent depression awareness program, targets 9th and 10th graders.

Swatrz: There are times when they don’t know how ill their children are. Teenagers are a particular challenge because it’s a developmental stage of life where people are keeping to themselves. The focus shifts from parents and siblings to peers. And so often the peers know things that the parents really don’t and so they may be having a rough time, or having things going on that the parents are completely unaware of, and that’s part of the idea of building a better safety net around them where they’re educated, their friends are educated their teachers are educated and there are more people around them who can say, this is a problem.  :33

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.