Depression leads to a range of emotional and physical problems, disruption of normal daily activities, and a depressed person may feel that life is not worth living. What diagnostic criteria are needed for diagnosis?
Diagnostic criteria for depression
In order for your doctor to diagnose major depression, you must meet the criteria for the symptoms listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association. Mental health providers use this guide to diagnose mental illness.
As for major depression, you should have five or more of the following symptoms during a period of two weeks or most of the day or almost daily. At least one symptom must be mood depression, loss of desire, or lack of happiness. Other symptoms may include:
- Depressed mood, such as feeling sad, meaningless, or crying (in children and adolescents, depressed mood can appear as a constant state of irritation).
- Lack of desire or feeling very unhappy when doing almost all or most activities.
- High weight loss, although not dieting, weight gain, low appetite or high (in children, not to gain weight according to expectations).
- Insomnia or increased desire to sleep.
- Boredom or slow behavior that others can observe.
- Fatigue or energy loss.
- Feeling of lack of value, guilt or inappropriate.
- Difficult to make decisions, think or focus.
- Recurrent thoughts about death, suicide or trying.
The symptoms are severe enough to cause significant problems that harm daily activities, such as work, study, social activities, or relationships with others. Symptoms may be based on one's own feelings or on someone else's observations.
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