Major Depressive Episode and Treatment among Adolescents: 2009

From the Department of Health & Human Services

An estimated 2 million adolescents, or 8.1 percent of the population aged 12 to 17, had major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year. Rates of past year MDE increased between the ages of 12 and 15 (from 3.6 to 10.4 percent), and females aged 12 to 17 were over twice as likely as their male counterparts to have had past year MDE (11.7 vs. 4.7 percent). Adolescents who had past year MDE were 3 times as likely as those without past year MDE to have had a substance use disorder in the past year (18.9 vs. 6.0 percent).