Social Determinants Of Mental Health Disorder: Depression In Women In Australia
Prevalence of Depression in Women in Australia
“A review of depression in the population groups of children and women, aged 16-85 years in Australia”.
The report brings about the discussion on the review and analysis of the levels of depression in context to the populations in Australia. Depression is characterised as a common mood disorder, which includes the symptoms of low mood, feeling of sadness, and the loss of interest in things, or in the activities of daily life. The population or age-group selected for studying the prevalence of depression has been taken as the people within the age-group, are 16-85 years, which will mainly state about women, and children, as they are the most affected population groups in the country. Thus, the report in the later part, will give readers information about the social, behavioural factors influencing the public health. In addition, it will refer to the issue of gender and human rights in Australia. Health promotion interventions will be formulated to address the problem of depression, and ensuring positive mental health of the people in the country (Walker, McGee & Druss, 2015).
Depression, also referred as clinical depression, or the depressive disorder causes distress to the individual resulting into the symptoms of low mood, anxiety, and a major impact on the person’s ability to think, behave and react to the things and deal with the activities in daily life. According to the WHO, depression has been now considered as the second leading cause of disease-burden, and acts as the major cause of the disability around the world. In addition, the illness has relevance to the discrimination amongst people in the society, which raises the concern of the issue of human rights (Christensen et al., 2016).
The occurrence of the illness, i.e. depression relates to different factors such as genetics, family circumstances, biological, environmental and psychological factors play a vital role in depression. Thus, mental disorder in context to Australia it has been found that 3 million Australians are living with anxiety and depression, and 1 in every 6 women is found with the disorder. Depression in children in Australia are mainly found with the major changes in their mood, thinking, and activities which leads to the sufficient cause of the impairment and disability in terms of personal and social functioning. They represent the problem of mental health disorders or illness in terms of difficulty in concentrating on studies, anger, and aggression, lack of appetite, anxiety, and social withdrawal. One in seven Australian child experience the mental illness of depression in the country (Clarke, 2015).
Social Determinants of Mental Health Disorders
The population group of 16 to 85 years are mostly affected by depression in the country. In Australia, it has been found that the mood disorders are prevalent in women more than men, especially in the 25-34 age-group. Depression amongst the women, at their young age occurs due to the reason of domestic violence, or experiencing the situation of intimate partner-violence in their families. The different levels of depression includes major depression, melancholia, psychotic depression, antenatal and postnatal depression, bipolar and unipolar disorder, and several others. However, amongst these the most common prevalent depression in women is the major depressive disorder, and unipolar depression. Unipolar depression refers to represent a group of varied disorders, where an individual experiences depressive episodes only, leading to major impact on their social and mental health, with the symptoms persistent to 2 or more years (Wise et al., 2017).
Discussing about the social determination or determinants of mental health disorder include social cohesion, negative life events, and others. Social determinants of health of a person refer to the conditions in which an individual grows, learn, live, and work inclusive of the quality and accessibility to the healthcare services. The social determinants of mental health disorders or illness consist of income quality, poor education, unemployment, job-insecurity, deprivation to sufficient food, and healthcare services. These determinants affects the living and mental health of the person specifically, genetic risks with the influence on the mental health outcomes of people (Sharma, Pinto & Kumagai, 2018).
Thus, the description will state about the social determinants of health for mental illness of depression in context to the above mentioned levels or types of depression for the population group of women in Australia. Gender disparities in mental health are the structural determinants of mental health and mental health illness such as depression, which leads to varied levels of depression amongst women in Australia (Australian Government Department of Health, 2011).
Women’s health and wellbeing in Australia mainly impacted by the four predominant social determinants, sex and gender, life-stages, diversity and the access to resources like education, social connections, safety and security. Amongst them, gender inequality has been found as the major cause of health inequalities in women leading to varied types of depression. It has been found that the women in Australia are often considered to be in the lower socio-economic status, due to which they are exposed to the risks of poor health and mental disorders like depression. These factors or determinants of poorer status, determines the occurrence of some particular levels of depression such as major depressive disorder, or unipolar disorder in women in Australia (Fisher et al., 2018).
Gender Inequality as a Major Cause of Health Inequalities in Women
The above discussion has stated about the social determinants of mental health disorder here, depression which has been the vital cause of mental health problems in Australia. Gender inequality or disparity is referred to the unequal treatment of the individuals on the basis of their gender. Mental health illness is widely spread amongst women and children in their younger years, especially in the country which relates to the issues of gender and inequality of human rights. The aspect of gender in context to the health inequalities or disorders faced by women or other population in Australia, it has been stated that Australian women account for 68% of the primary carer for the older people and the disabled people (Boeschoten et al., 2017).
Over half of the population in Australia comprises of women, still they have fewer opportunities, in comparison to men. As the workforce in Australia has been differentiated on the basis of gender, thus there is a rising concern of the issue of gender disparity in women which further leads to the diseases, illness, or disabilities in women. The issues which occurs with the gender disparity include gender pay-gap, occupational segregation (World Health Organisation, 2018).
Women in Australia in the weaker section are often denied of their fundamental humans rights due to their colour, race, sex, or any disability. Human rights violations can potentially impact as they play an important part in their life. Some people or specific population group such as women are exposed to the issues of human right abuses by people. For an example, it has been found that children in Australia are often subject to the violence in their playground or at their homes, which denies the respect to their basic human rights (Allen et al., 2014).
Health promotion intervention must be used to address, the mental health disorder, depression and promote the positive mental health outcomes for the women in Australia. The Australian government is committed towards maintaining their focus on discovering early intervention, so that the prevalence of depression could be reduced. Interventions can be categorised into universal, selected and the indicated risk groups, like here the major risk of depression has been studies on women. Thus, formulating a health promotion intervention will facilitate in bringing positive health outcomes for the women affected by depression in Australia (Biaggi et al., 2016).
Health promotion or illness intervention will include the following steps to facilitate prevention of depression in women. Starting from the lifestyle changes, medications, stress management skills training, and preventive consultation and leading to positive psychotherapy. Stress and problems like depression are mostly the issues which arise from the unhealthy lifestyle, choices, moving onto next medicines, stress management training, and taking therapies from the can help women to become free from the illness. Moreover, it is important to spread awareness and education about the mental health and disorders associated, amongst the population of Australia, especially to the women with poor economic stratus, to attain positive health outcomes in the future (Short, 2016).
Health Promotion Interventions for Depression Prevention in Women
The socio-ecological model of health will include the factors such as intrapersonal consisting behaviour, beliefs, attitude, and community factors. In other words, the model includes individual, social environment, physical environment, and policies which are formulated to verify the strategies for prevention of depression. The relevance of the socio-ecological model can be stated as that component of the model will remain same however; the intervention strategies would differ as per the population. Thus here the disorder will lead to poverty in women which would affect them, and will make difficult for them to afford the training for stress management, or medications for improving their health condition. Hence, it can be stated that Australian government and healthcare must focus on enhancing the health care, and outcomes of women through effective prevention strategies (Wind & Komproe, 2018).
Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion, it has been analysed that depression is found to be having the third highest burden of diseases in Australia. Women as the chosen population group in Australia, has been used above in the report to define the mental health disorder, depression and the impact on their health outcomes. According to the research, it has been Australia has been ranked at 35th in terms of persistent gender inequality. Thus, the country must ensure following and implementing effective health intervention to reduce the further occurrence of the burden of disease, depression amongst women, which will lead to positive health outcomes.
References
Allen, J., Balfour, R., Bell, R. & Marmot, M. (2014). Social determinants of mental health. International review of psychiatry, 26(4), 392-407.
Australian Government Department of Health. (2011). Social factors influencing women’s health and wellbeing. Retrieved from: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/womens-health-policy-toc~womens-health-policy-social
Biaggi, A., Conroy, S., Pawlby, S. & Pariante, C. M. (2016). Identifying the women at risk of antenatal anxiety and depression: a systematic review. Journal of affective disorders, 191, 62-77.
Boeschoten, R. E., Braamse, A. M., Beekman, A. T., Cuijpers, P., van Oppen, P., Dekker, J., & Uitdehaag, B. M. (2017). Prevalence of depression and anxiety in multiple sclerosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the neurological sciences, 372, 331-341.
Christensen, D. L., Bilder, D. A., Zahorodny, W., Pettygrove, S., Durkin, M. S., Fitzgerald, R. T. & Yeargin-Allsopp, M. (2016). Prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder among 4-year-old children in the autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network. Journal of Developmental & Behavioural Paediatrics, 37(1), 1-8.
Clarke, K. A. (2015). Women and depression: making meaning and decisions about electroconvulsive therapy. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, 22(9), 49.
Fisher, K. L., Harrison, E. L., Bruner, B. G., Lawson, J. A., Reeder, B. A., Ashworth, N. L. & Chad, K. E. (2018). Predictors of Physical Activity Levels in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Multivariate Approach Based on a Socio-Ecological Framework. Journal of aging and physical activity, 26(1), 114-120.
Laursen, T. M., Musliner, K. L., Benros, M. E., Vestergaard, M. & Munk-Olsen, T. (2016). Mortality and life expectancy in persons with severe unipolar depression. Journal of affective disorders, 193, 203-207.
Sharma, M., Pinto, A. D. & Kumagai, A. K. (2018). Teaching the social determinants of health: A path to equity or a road to nowhere? Academic medicine, 93(1), 25-30.
Short, D. (2016). Reconciliation and colonial power: Indigenous rights in Australia. United Kingdom: Routledge.
Walker, E. R., McGee, R. E. & Druss, B. G. (2015). Mortality in mental disorders and global disease burden implications: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA psychiatry, 72(4), 334-341.
Wind, T. R. & Komproe, I. H. (2018). Closing the gap between disaster mental health research and practice: evidence for socio-ecological mental health interventions through multilevel research. Intervention, 16(1), 5.
Wise, T., Radua, J., Via, E., Cardoner, N., Abe, O., Adams, T. M. & Dickstein, D. P. (2017). Common and distinct patterns of grey-matter volume alteration in major depression and bipolar disorder: evidence from voxel-based meta-analysis. Molecular psychiatry, 22(10), 1455.
World Health Organisation. (2018). Gender, equity and human rights. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/understanding/gender-definition/en/