Over the last decade, the consumption of antidepressants has increased by 50% in Spain. Although depression did not get its current name until the 19th century, when it was coined by the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, terms such as melancholy or Acedia have been used throughout history to refer to this disease which conveys, among other myths, the idea that it only occurs in first world people.
Neither disease of the rich, nor disease of the weak
This prejudice arises “in part because most clinical and epidemiological studies have been carried out in developed or Western societies,” in the words of Dr. Laura Muñoz Lorenzo, deputy head of the psychiatry department at the Jiménez Foundation University Hospital. Díaz, who adds that in addition these studies are given “In many cases, in a clinical population that already had access to a particular type of help and treatment, which unfortunately is neither universalized nor universalized in the same way across all societies. »
In today’s program, we will talk about some myths surrounding depression and date the legend that it only occurs in developed societies.
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