Even children have mood disorders and though the symptoms may not play out exactly as they would in older children or adults, there are countless cases of mood disorders in children. Several mental health illnesses or disorders have symptoms that almost look alike. The case is not different with mood disorders, hence we advise that you seek appropriate mental health care once you start noticing any of the symptoms outlined in the last post. What this does for you is that it helps you get a proper diagnosis and adequate professional help.
Welcome to another exciting expository outline of mood disorders, thank you for taking out time to read this article, we sincerely hope you would find everything we have researched on and have compiled here on the subject matter enlightening. In this post, we would be looking at the scientifically proven causes of mood disorders, what effects mood disorders have on the individual and a sneak peek of how mood disorders affect children.
How do Mood Disorders Come to be (Causes)
If you are like us, then, you must have wondered how mood disorders came to be. What exactly causes mood disorders in children and adults?
Mood disorders are a significant class of mental illnesses and extensive research has gone into the nature and causes of this disorder. However, researchers and mental health professionals have been unable to find biological and environmental causes of mood disorders.
Scientists presently cannot tie mood disorders to biological or environmental factors, they have, however, found existing relationships between genetic factors and mood disorders. People with a family history of mood disorders are more likely to have mood disorders but this relationship between genetics and mood disorders is a very weak one.
Other factors that have significant relationships with mood disorders include traumatic life events, substance misuse and abuse, medical complications such as the wrong use of pharmaceutical products.
Mood disorders more often than not negatively impact on career life, school, social life and even personal relationships if left untreated and if professional help is not sought out.
Prevalence of Mood Disorders in Adult Populations.
Nigeria currently has vague data on the prevalence of mood disorders among adult and children population. In the United States of America, mood disorders have been found to affect approximately 20% of the general population. This statistic was examined over a couple of years and it was found that at every given point in time, two out of every ten Americans are suffering from a particular mood disorder. In addition, depression is one of the most prevalent types of mood disorder, with roughly 17% of Americans suffering from depression suffering at least once in their life.
While this data shows the high rate of depression, several other mood disorders such as bipolar and manic episodes may be unaccounted for as they are more difficult to categories and only become serious mental health cases when they are at extreme levels. This would mean that mood disorders are largely undiagnosed.
Mood Disorders in Children
Children can also suffer from mood disorders but at a varying level of intensity and with a different outplay of symptoms. Research findings indicate that anxiety and mood disorders affect an estimated 5% to 15% of children and adolescents worldwide.
In recent times, mental health researchers hold the opinion that among children, mood disorders remain largely underdiagnosed as a mental health problem. At this rate, it becomes very possible that children are put at higher levels of mental health risk, which causes them to become more susceptible to other severe mental health disorders and the onset of disruptive behaviour and substance or substance use disorders. All this points to the fact that better mental health illness diagnosis processes should be set in place for children and teenagers.
As mentioned earlier in this post, you need to understand that children and teenagers who have mood disorders will not have mirror-like symptoms as adults who have mood disorders would. Parents and guardians, therefore, need to pay extra attention to significant emotional and behavioural changes in their children and to seek appropriate professional help without stigmatizing the child.
In children, the following mood disorders are prevalent;
- Major depression
- Persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia)
- Bipolar disorder
- Premenstrual dysmorphic disorder
- Mood disorders resulting from other general medical conditions.
- Substance-induced mood disorders.
Research also shows that female children and teenagers are two times more likely to experience depressive moods or depression than their male counterparts. The situation isn’t the same, however, with bipolar disorder. Thank you again for reading, join us in our next post. Do leave a comment and share.