ABSTRACT
Depression is well known to be a very common problem. It is estimated that there may be in excess of a hundred million people suffering from it in the world today. Some studies suggest lifetime rates for depression (including bipolar depression, major depression and dysthymia) are about 8.2 per cent, but there are variations from country to country and from place to place within countries (Jenkins et al. 1991; Weissman and Klerman 1994). Urbanisation and industrialisation seem to increase risk. For major depression women are more at risk, in the order of 3:1. More worrying still is the evidence that rates of depression, especially in younger cohorts, have been increasing steadily since the turn of the century (Fombonne 1994; Weissman and Klerman 1994). Not only can depression occur in a relatively pure form but it is also the most common difficulty accompanying other disorders such as anorexia, social anxiety, schizophrenia and alcoholism.
