Depression is an emotional disorder caused by a variety of factors. As the pace of life continues to accelerate, people face increasing competitive pressures in life and work, and more or less physical and psychological disorders will appear. Depression, however, is one of the most torturous of the many psychological disorders.
Depression is always a medical problem, and more patients need to be treated and controlled with medication. Even if a cure is eventually achieved through medication, there is a high chance of relapse in the future. For example, if a patient is stimulated again by something, it is very easy for the depression to come back and become more and more severe.
Depression is a highly recurrent disorder (some studies suggest a recurrence rate of more than 50%), and medication maintenance treatment can reduce recurrence, especially for people at risk with a history of previous episodes, family history, women, severe physical illness, and high mental stress.
Therefore, most experts recommend that maintenance treatment for the first depressive episode takes 4 to 6 months. If there are more than 2 relapses, especially in patients with an onset in adolescence, family history, with psychotic symptoms, severe illness, and high risk of suicide, maintenance treatment needs to be 2 to 3 years.
If antidepressant treatment is short, the chance of relapse is significantly higher. The increase in the number of depressive episodes as well as the prolonged duration of the disease will have a prognostic impact, and the number of depressive relapses will become more frequent and the duration of the episodes will become longer. Patients with multiple relapses can become chronic, and the remission rate decreases significantly. The suicide rate for depression is 10-15%, a fairly high rate.
For patients with depression, if the illness is chronic and severe, it is likely to cause irreversible damage to the brain nerves and a very different temperament than before.
Therefore, once you find yourself or someone around you suffering from depression, it is important to seek medical attention in a timely manner so that early treatment can prevent more serious consequences.
References.
[1] Liu, Dan. Depression [J]. China Medicine Herald. 2021(1):70