Teen Depression Statistics Reveal High Numbers of Crippled Teens
Researchers from SAMHSA and RTI International discovered that an alarming number of teenagers experience major depression. In fact, 1 in every 12 teenagers (8.5%) aged 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode (MDE) within a one year period.
- 1 in 8 teen girls (12.7%) experienced a major depressive episode
- 1 in 21 teen boys (4.6%) experienced a major depressive episode
The likelihood of a teenager experiencing a MDE increases with age.

Among teens with a past year MDE, how many are impaired by the MDE in at least one of four role domains (i.e., home, school/work, family relationships, or social life)?
- 1 in 5 (21.0%) reported very severe impairment lasting an average 58.4 days
- 1 in 2 (48.3%) reported severe impairment lasting an average 25.8 days
- 1 in 4 (25.0%) reported moderate impairment lasting an average 14.1 days
- 1 in 19 (5.3%) reported mild impairment lasting an average 11.7 days
- 1 in 250 (0.4%) reported no impairment
For more details, read the full report. It is saddening to see so many teenagers being crippled by depression. Based on these statistics, there is a good chance someone in your youth group is experiencing a major depressive episode.
For Discussion:
- Aside from prayer, what are some effective ways to help teens prevent or cope with depression?
[via MSNBC]


Timoteo was a Bible student but also worked at the mission as a groundskeeper and night watchman. He had come from the jungle with not much more than his family and a passion to study the Bible. Hoping to make life easier, we gave them clothes. But as a kid, I thought our gift was lacking something, so I added a bright yellow fly eye kaleidoscope. It wasn’t much. I won it years earlier with skee-ball tickets at a pizza joint. And all it did was multiply whatever you looked at into “hundreds” of images just like a fly’s eye.







