YOUNG PEOPLE’S VIEWS OF THEIR DEPRESSION IN

RELATION TO THE CONCEPT OF ILLNESS

Mervi Issakainen

Doctoral student

“Coping with depression in social context” -project

University of Eastern Finland

QRMH3 – conference 25.8.-27.8.2010, Nottingham, England

This presentation

Depression is a common and impairing affliction among Finnish young people (e.g. Raitasalo & Maaniemi 2009).

Young people tend to hide their feelings of depression and do not seek help (e.g. Draucker 2005; Wisdom et al. 2006).

The aim of the study: to understand how young people with experiences of depression view the conception of depression as an illness.

Having experiences of depression is defined by the young people themselves.

Data collection

The study is conducted via internet -> a website for data collection

Participants: 82 young people (75 women and 7 men between 14 – 34 years of age)

Methods:

- written narratives (N=61, the length varies from couple of sentences to over 7 pages)

- 2 online group discussions (348 messages including mine, from one sentence to 1,5 pages)

- 4 online individual interviews (67 messages including mine, from one sentence to 1,5 pages)

Data analysis

The concept of illness occurs 79 times -> the analysis concentrated on those parts of the data

Thematic analysis:

- coding the data by searching themes reflecting the views of depression as an illness

- organizing the codes under different themes and sub-themes

- re-coding the data based on the detailed coding frame

Results

The cultural conceptions of (young people’s) depression:

- Depression is a mental illness

- Depression is a matter of pulling oneself together

The young people’s response to these conceptions:

- Depression is an illness as any other

Depression as a mental illness

The cultural conception of depression which means (to the young people):

- being pushed outside the normal people’s decent life

- experiences and fear of being labeled as mad

”It was mentioned, in some earlier writing, that someone has heard (about himself) that ”the X will probably murder everyone soon”. I’ve, also, heard someone

saying, as a joke, though, that I’m the next school killer…”

(26-year-old man, 2. group discussion)

Depression as a matter of pulling oneself together

The cultural conception of depression which means (to the young people):

- feeling guilty and being accused of

- experiences and fear of not being listened to or taken seriously

”I never answered, why I don’t want other people to know about my depression and, I believe, I figured the answer now. The biggest fear is, probably, that my

illness would be belittled by saying it will go away, by commenting with a joke etc. Sometimes, I really have to fight to make my partner understand how

bad my situation really is.”

(20-year-old woman, individual interview)

The young people’s own views of their depression:

- it is a serious illness - nothing less

- it is only an illness - nothing more

--> depression is an illness as any other

--> the needed compassion and time to get their life back on track

Depression as an illness as any other

”In my opinion, it should be talked about, a lot, so that young people would get it that it is not “teen age

angst”, but a serious illness. Thank you.”

(16-year-old woman, narrative)

”...I’ve, also, heard someone saying, as a joke, though, that I´m the next school killer. I would never want to hurt anyone else, though, I’m feeling bad. I don’t

hate the world or blame it for my condition. This is only an illness from which I, surely, am capable of

recovering some day.”

(26-year-old man, 2. group discussion)

Conclusions

The cultural conceptions of depression seem to support understanding it either as “a mental illness” or as “a matter of pulling oneself together”.

Especially, young people’s depression tend to be belittled.

The young people sought a compromise between the extreme conceptions by hoping that depression would be viewed as “an illness as any other”.

Experiences of depression are legitimized by comparing them to physical illnesses (cf. Lafrance 2007). However, young people do not, necessarily, subscribe to the biomedical conception of depression.

References

Draucker, C. B. 2005. The interaction patterns between depressed young people and the important adults in their lives. Qualitative Health Research 15 (7), 942 – 963.

Lafrance, M. N. 2007. A bitter pill: A discursive analysis of women’s medicalized accounts of depression. Journal of Health Psychology 12 (1), 127 - 140.

Raitasalo, R. & Maaniemi, K. 2009. Mielenterveyden häiriöt aiheuttavat nuorille yhä enemmän sairauspoissaoloja. Sosiaalivakuutus 47 (4), 22 – 24.

Wisdom, J. P.; Clarke, G. N. & Green, C. A. 2006. What teens want: Barriers to seeking care for depression. Administration and Policy in Mental Health Services Research 33 (2), 133 – 145.

Thank you!

Ethical considerations

The website provided information about the study

Participants used pseudonyms

I do not report the pseudonyms, because, the same pseudonym may be used in some other online environment representing individual’s online identity (Kuula (2006).

The data between the participant’s computer and the service was encrypted by using the SSL-certificate