The Depressing Fact of the Day

Depression is the second most common cause of disability worldwide after back pain, according to research. Globally, only a small proportion of patients have access to treatment, the World Health Organization says.The disease must be treated as a world public health priority, experts report.

Commenting on the study, Dr Daniel Chisholm, a health economist at the department for mental health and substance abuse at the World Health Organization said depression was a very disabling condition.

"It's a big public health challenge and a big problem to be reckoned with but not enough is being done. Around the world only a tiny proportion of people get any sort of treatment or diagnosis."

The Middle East and North Africa suffer the world’s highest depression rates, according to a new study by researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland -- and it’s costing people in the region years off their lives.

Depressed Scotland

The number of people in Scotland prescribed antidepressants has reached record levels, with more than one in seven people taking the drugs. There has been a steady rise in usage. There were 1.26 million drugs dispensed in 1993/94, increasing to 5.01 million in 2011/12.

The diagnostic criteria for depression as two weeks of low mood, irrespective of any change in the circumstances of the patient which might have left them feeling down. It even proposes that being low two weeks after bereavement should be considered depression.

Glasgow GP Des Spence argues treating depression like a medical condition is distracting attention from what really makes patients unhappy. "I think we use antidepressants too easily, for too long and that they are effective for few people (if at all)." Dr Spence's  concern about the widespread use of antidepressants is they leave the real reason for someone's poor mood unexplained. He said: "Improving society's wellbeing is not in the gift of medicine nor mere medication, and over-prescribing of antidepressants serves as distraction from a wider debate about why we are so unhappy as a society."

recession news

The typical household will see its disposable income fall by 2 per cent this year, the equivalent of £780, an economist warned today. Roger Bootle, a former government adviser who now works with Deloitte, the accountancy firm, predicted that 2011 would be the worst year for household finances since 1977 – and added that if interest rates were to rise, British families would not have seen conditions deteriorate so badly since 1952.

Said Mr Bootle. "I think this year will see falling real earnings, falling real house prices and rising unemployment."

more pay cuts loom

About 3% of the UK's workforce have seen basic pay fall in the past year and those in the construction sector have been hardest hit, it said, with 10% in that industry seeing pay fall according to this report .Thousands of workers have negotiated lower pay packets hoping to avoid redundancy.
"We're predicting next year that we're going to see more organisations making more and more redundancies." said the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Blue Monday

A special course is being run to help businesses cope with unhappy workers on the "most depressing day of the year". Experts calculate that 'Blue Monday' will fall on January 21 - the first work day in the last week of January. A team of counsellors from Kirkcaldy in Fife will advise managers of medium-sized businesses on how to spot the symptoms of depression and stress.

Triggers for Blue Monday include the weather and the arrival of the Christmas credit card bill. The formula was calculated from research carried out by Dr Cliff Arnall from the University of Cardiff.
Jeni McCabe from HR consultancy Simple Corporate Resource Solutions said : "Problems can arise with the festivities being over, 'real life' resuming, foul weather, first credit card bills of the year coming through our doors and so on. But in reality these symptoms cause year-round headaches for employers. Our event will help delegates prevent and treat these common workplace ailments. There's no doubt that a happy workforce is a productive workforce."

Every day is a Blue Monday for the world's working class and everyday the capitalist class wants us to be more productive .