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Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Even if it is just a “blocking light” now, it will again be more depressing for people with mental illness than others. How much psychiatrists show in the new “Barometer of Depression.”
According to a new study, people with depression in Germany are more affected by the consequences of corona measures than the general population. For example, they experienced the spring closure as much more stressful, according to the new “German Depression Barometer” published by the German Depression Relief Foundation in Leipzig. That is also to be expected for the current partial lockdown, said psychiatrist Ulrich Hegerl as president of the foundation.
According to the foundation, more than five million people in Germany are depressed. In the spring, nearly one in two patients experienced treatment restrictions, for example due to missed doctor appointments or clinic visits. Even now, clinics have shifted resources for treating corona infections. Again, this comes at the expense of caring for people with mental illness, Hegerl said. “Depression is a serious, often life-threatening illness that needs urgent treatment.”
For its fourth barometer of depression in June and July, the foundation had about 5,000 people between the ages of 18 and 69 questioned online. In addition, he evaluated the responses of people in a depressive phase in a sample and compared the values.
People with depression suffer even more
After that, about three-quarters of people with depression (74 percent) found lockdown in the spring to be oppressive. In the general population, it was 59 percent, according to the analysis. For example, people in a depressive phase would have suffered almost twice as often from lack of daily structure (75 percent) and melancholy (89 percent) than the general population (39 and 41 percent). Isolated at home, depressed patients also stayed in bed much more frequently during the day (48 percent versus 21 percent). More than a third (43 percent) of them said that there were conflicts and arguments. In the general population, less than a fifth (18 percent) of those surveyed said this.
“For people with depression, taking refuge in their own four walls as a result of this second part of the confinement will again have many negative effects,” Hegerl predicted. People with depression would have more time to reflect and could go deeper into depression. “These are aspects that concern me a lot,” added the psychiatrist. Telephone and video consultation hours, as well as online programs, are only one possible alternative for a smaller proportion of patients, even if offers are now accepted more frequently than before.
