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Depression in children and adolescents: the numbers are increasing
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The number of children and adolescents being treated in a clinic for depression has risen sharply.
Current figures from the Federal Statistical Office are only available until 2019, i.e. before the corona pandemic.
According to this, the number of children and adolescents receiving inpatient treatment increased by 24 percent to 18,000 between 2015 and 2019.
In 2015, according to the figures, 14,500 young patients were treated in hospital for depression.
The increase was therefore above average.
In the same period, the number of all patients discharged from hospital with depression rose by only half a percent to a total of 264,000.
With a share of 61 percent, women are more affected by inpatient depression.
Children particularly affected by pandemic
The number could have risen again in 2020, because children and young people suffer psychologically from the effects of the pandemic.
Isolation through contact blocking and homeschooling in particular harbor risks for mental health problems for children.
The University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) found out in a study that almost every third child suffers from psychological problems less than a year after the start of the pandemic.
The so-called Copsy study (Corona and Psyche) examines the situation of children and adolescents during the corona crisis.
Children and young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds or with a migration background are particularly affected.
The number of psychotherapists is increasing
As the Federal Statistical Office also reports, around 48,000 psychotherapists and child and adolescent psychotherapists were working in Germany in 2019.
That was 19 percent more than five years earlier.
Since 2015, their number has increased steadily by an average of 2000 every year.
Many people do not turn to a clinic directly for psychological problems, but first seek help from outpatient psychotherapeutic practices.
In 2019, almost 35,000 psychotherapists - almost three quarters - worked in such practices.
The remaining number of therapists was therefore distributed among other (outpatient) facilities, hospitals, preventive and rehabilitation facilities or administrations.
kry / AFP
