Depression vector created by pch.vector - www.freepik.com and Inkscape.org

Depression is expensive. Eating out everyday because you have no energy to cook, late fees on bills you either forgot to or didn’t have the energy to pay, retail therapy for temporary gratification

— Melanated Therapist, LCSW (@nubivn_) August 20, 2022

In this post, I want to talk about the financial cost of managing depression. From the post what we can see is that most of the expense comes from modifiable lifestyle characteristics. But I want to look beyond that and talk about depression as a whole.

I want to also state that I agree that depression can be an expensive condition. But much does it cost to manage depression?

In the last post, I delved deep into dating and depression. What we were able to gather was that depression is not a condition that should be managed alone while dating but in conjunction with the therapist. Being with someone who does not understand mental health can lead to consequences like worsening symptoms.

It is most important that you find ways to encourage your partner to take their drugs and seek therapy.

Hello, I’m Dr Ebingo Kigigha, I’m a medical doctor and illustrator. I write here in Medic Vibes where we are most concerned with depression.

Depression is the 4th leading cause of disability, it affects around 4% of the world's population.

Depression is a mental health condition that presents with a sad mood, and a lack of interest in the things that usually interest you. People who are depressed also have complaints about weight control, sleep and their appetite.

Depression can lead to suicide and it usually begins with suicidal ideations. These Ideations show themselves in the thing the individual says while depressed. The patient may express a wish to end their life.

If you know someone who speaks like this and has these symptoms you must get assistance. I’m leaving some numbers of the suicide hotline in Nigeria here:

Inkscape.org

Check your country's suicide hotlines here.

Cost of Managing Depression

Money illustrations by Storyset

As I have already mentioned above, I hope to gather information, not just about the aspects of depression that affect lifestyle. We need to deal even more with the aspects related to therapy.

According to the American Association of Psychiatrists in an article titled

The Economic Cost of Depression is Increasing: Direct costs are only a small part

This post was made ma of last year and brought to light that around $236 billion is the size of the economic burden. It was also noted to have increased within 8 years by 36%.

Experts broke the financial burden into 3 parts.

• The cost of managing the condition
• The losses in the workplace
• The losses due to suicide

Among all the parts it was clear that the cost of managing the condition did not account for up to 12% of the fiancial burden. The workplace cost was most remarkable counting for up to 48% and rising to 61% between 2010 and 2018.

Looking at this data, it somewhat agrees with the information given in the tweet. Further extending the workplace inabilities, and asceticism, on the individual level, the person is on able to take care of his /herself. This however will depend on the cost f living of the country you find yourself in. In a country like America where feeding alone might cost you close to $2,600 for a year.

Some drugs can cost as low as $10 for 30 days worth of therapy while others can cost over $1000.

The cost of therapy is around $100 per hour. Last I heard it was around the same price for a day's therapy…but don’t quote me.

Tips

As with every condition, prevention is always better than the cure. It cost way less to start getting active today, early detection and prompt treatment are also better than dealing with the complications of this condition. If complications such as sleep disturbance, eating problems or weight gain or weight loss issues start they are significantly worse and more expensive to manage.

Hive Stories

In @denmarkguy’s post, he explains that happiness is not the absence of depression just like good health is not the absence of disease. I understand the sentiment that went into writing this post and I would like to urge my readers to check out the post.

I have seen many Tik-Tok posts about depression that have the same sentiments about depression. It is more important to get our patients to good health than to give them a life without depression, but it is not very common. Many have said psychiatry itself is a very depressing field and this is part of the reason.

Questions

• How costly does the condition seem to you?
• What can you do to reduce the cost of management?
• Which is costlier between the management or the lifestyle of the person who is depressed?

Conclusion

Depression can be very ecxpensive to manage and but early detection and prompt treatment can help reduce the cost.

References

• American
  Psychiatric Association
• Money illustrations by Storyset
• Healthline