Depressive symptoms and their impact on social representation of depression: a study with adolescents

Depression has been portrayed as the evil of the century, becoming a public health problem that has affected millions of people worldwide. This study aimed to understand how adolescents represent depression. One hundred and sixty-eight high school students aged 14 to 18 years participated, from publ...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Coutinho de Mello, Alexandre, Carneiro Maciel, Silvana, Vasconcelos Dias , Camila Cristina, Cabral da Silva , João Victor
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:Uruguay
Institución:Universidad Católica del Uruguay
Repositorio:LIBERI
Idioma:inglés
portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:liberi.ucu.edu.uy:10895/5470
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.ucu.edu.uy/index.php/cienciaspsicologicas/article/view/2098
https://hdl.handle.net/10895/5470
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:depressão
adolescentes
representação social
TALP
HADS
depresión
representación social
depression
adolescents
social representation
Descripción
Sumario:Depression has been portrayed as the evil of the century, becoming a public health problem that has affected millions of people worldwide. This study aimed to understand how adolescents represent depression. One hundred and sixty-eight high school students aged 14 to 18 years participated, from public and private schools in João Pessoa-Paraíba, Brazil. We used the Free Association of Words Technique (TALP), a sociodemographic questionnaire, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The social representation of depression anchored in subjective experiences was observed, emphasizing the individual aspects of this phenomenon, such as sadness, loneliness, anguish, suffering and suicide. The adolescents presented depressive symptoms in 21.4 % of the cases, and these percentages are higher when compared to other studies in the area. It is hoped that this study can promote preventive actions in the school context and reflect on ways to raise awareness of depression as a disorder with multiple causes.