People aged 18 to 24 “appear to be the category most affected by a depressive episode in the year”, writes Santé Publique France in its latest bulletin.
The number of people who experienced a major depressive episode (CDE) in the last 12 months increased from 2017 to 2021, underlines an epidemiological bulletin of Public Health France released on Tuesday. And “the most significant increase was observed among young adults”, i.e. 18-24 year olds.
EDC prevalent for this age group was only 9.7% in 2005 and 2010, 11.7% in 2017 and climbs to 20.8% in 2021. This is “the highest increase most important” observed among all age groups.
“Young adults aged 18-24 appear to be the category most affected by a depressive episode during the year with an increase in the prevalence observed over the period 2017-2021 of almost 80%”, writes SPF, while in previous editions of this barometer, the increase “was comparable to that of the rest of the population”.
This study was carried out using data from the Barometer of Public Health France, by telephone, with people aged 18 to 85 living in metropolitan France. The survey was conducted by the Ipsos institute, from February 11 to December 15, 2021. In total, 24,514 people were interviewed.
“The stress caused by the Covid-19 disease”
Impossible, of course, to establish in each case a precise link of cause and effect between the Covid crisis and the onset of depression, especially since the causes of this disease always obey multiple factors. But, in general, “the stress caused by the Covid-19 disease and the restrictions imposed to control it appears to be one of the main explanatory hypotheses for this increase”, judge the researchers.
Among students, who generally correspond to the 18-24 age group, the prevalence of EDC “would have doubled in the last ten years, going from 10.1% in 2010 to 20.3% in 2021”, underlines SPF, adding that “data from the scientific literature show that students constitute a population vulnerable to mental health problems, even outside the context of an epidemic.”
These results observed in metropolitan France have also been observed elsewhere in the world. In a study published by The Lancet in October 2021, researchers estimated that the number of depressive disorders cases increased by 27.6% worldwide in 2020, the number of anxiety disorders cases by 25.6%.
In 2021, young people, but also “women, people living alone and single-parent families” as well as people in financial difficulty, and those “indicating that Covid-19 had had a negative impact on their morale, were at risk. of higher EDC”, also write the researchers of Public Health France.
