June 17, 2003 — About 16 percent of Americans will experience a major depression sometime during their life but many of those affected are not getting sufficient help, according to studies released Tuesday.
More than 13 million Americans will grapple with the mood-altering condition during any given year — more than 30 million Americans over their lifetimes, according to the papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Nearly two thirds of those surveyed for the studies said that the episodes of the depression — defined as clinical depression — interfered with their ability to work and function socially.
Yet just 50 percent of the sufferers were receiving treatment and only 22 percent of those were getting "adequate treatment," in spite of the number of cost-effective drug treatments available, the authors of the study found.
The data was based on a national survey of more than 9,000 Americans conducted between February 2001 and December 2002.
A separate survey found that depression costs US corporations an estimated 44 billion dollars a year in lost productivity.
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