Therapist Unlimited Blog

Here is a piece of advice to parents to keep their child away from depression from preschool.
This developed after a recent study has shown that depression in preschool could last until childhood.
According to the study, depression among preschoolers appears to be a continuous, chronic condition rather than a transient developmental stage.
The researchers revealed the validity of major depressive disorder in childhood has been well established, with the disorder now widely recognized and treated in mental health settings.
Joan L. Luby, M.D., and colleagues at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied 306 preschoolers age 3 to 6. Of these, 75 met criteria for major depressive disorder, 79 had anxiety or disruptive disorders but not depression and 146 did not meet criteria for any psychiatric disorder.
It is said that a comprehensive three- to four-hour laboratory assessment was completed at the beginning of the study.
While children completed measures of emotional, cognitive and social development, primary caregivers were interviewed separately about the preschoolers’ psychiatric symptoms and developmental skills.
Similar developmental and behavioral assessments were conducted 12 and 24 months later.

Parents should do their best to help their children cope up with depression in preschool, so that their medical condition could not last until childhood.

The researchers explained preschoolers with depression at baseline had the highest likelihood of subsequent depression 12 and/or 24 months later compared with preschoolers with no baseline disorder and with those who had other psychiatric disorders.
After controlling for other demographic variables and risk factors, preschoolers with depression at the beginning of the study had a four times greater likelihood of having depression one and two years later than preschoolers without depression.
The condition also showed a chronic and recurrent course among preschoolers-in a subset of 119 preschoolers with depression or depressive symptoms who were screened by phone at six and 18 months, 57 percent of those with depression had an episode during at least two follow-up points during study and 18 percent followed a chronic course, defined as having an episode in at least four waves of the study.
Furthermore, the researchers said these results underscore the clinical and public health importance of identification of depression as early as preschool.
The researchers explained early intervention during the preschool period has proved effective in other childhood disorders.
The researchers added the study findings that demonstrate longitudinal stability and homotypic continuity of preschool major depressive disorder suggest that earlier interventions for major depressive disorder during the preschool period may be an important area for investigation in the search for more effective treatments for childhood major depressive disorder.