. "1 Introduction and Magnitude of the Problem." Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children: Opportunities to Improve Identification, Treatment, and Prevention. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009.
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Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children: Opportunities to Improve Identification, Treatment, and Prevention
TABLE 1-1 Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder with Hierarchya for Adults with at Least One Child Under the Age of 18 Years, 2002
Major Depression
Women (%) (n = 1,301)
Men (%) (n = 942)
Overall (%) (n = 2,243)
Overall
Lifetime
21.7
12.6
17.3
Past 12 months
10.0
4.3
7.2
With Child ≤ 5 Years of Age
Lifetime
17.2
11.5
14.8
Past 12 months
10.0
4.4
7.6
With Child 6–12 Years of Age
Lifetime
22.3
12.9
17.7
Past 12 months
10.0
4.2
7.2
With Child ≥ 13 Years of Age
Lifetime
24.5
14.2
19.4
Past 12 months
10.5
5.2
7.8
a“With hierarchy” refers to a diagnostic criterion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manualof Mental Disorders, 4th edition that specifies that if a disorder is better explained by another mental disorder, that “other” disorder is given hierarchy over the disorder of interest, i.e., a more narrow definition of major depression disorder that does not include those with mania and hypomania.
depression in the past year, the NCS-R found that approximately 7 percent of parents (with at least one child) had major or severe depression in the last 12 months and did not differ by the age of the child (see Table 1-1). The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), another national data set that collects self-reported data, offers further insight on the scope of depression, specifically in postpartum women. The survey found that 11 to 20 percent of new mothers were affected by depressive symptoms following childbirth (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). One important longitudinal study in the United Kingdom of parents and child outcomes, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, was used to do secondary analyses of paternal peripartum depression (Ramchandani et al., 2008). Father’s depression correlated strongly with maternal depression scores, suggesting that, when fathers are depressed, there may be a high prevalence of both parents being depressed.
Disparities and Vulnerable Populations
Despite its prevalence across cultures, sexes, income strata, and age groups, tremendous differences in depression rates in particular sociodemo-
