Childhood and adolescent depression: a review

This paper reviews the recent literature on various aspects of depressive disorders in children and adolescents, including phenomenology, comorbidity, epidemiology, etiology, natural history, and treatment. Depression is an important psychiatric disorder in children and adolescents that increases in frequency with age, often coexists with anxiety disorders and behavior disorders, and is associated with long-term morbidity and risk of suicide. Both pharmacological and psychosocial interventions are currently under investigation to determine their efficacy in the treatment of depression in youth. Given the significant duration, relapse rate, morbidity, and impaired psychosocial functioning associated with depressive disorders in childhood, further exploration of the natural history and treatment of this condition is warranted.