Most Adults Suffering From Depression Left Untreated, Here's Why

Medical practitioners are now calling for a stronger effort to help those with depression. Recent findings showed that fewer than one-third of American adults who are said to have the disease are treated, and most of those who do receive treatment may not have even screened positive.

CNN noted that major depression is among the most common mental disorders in the United States, affecting more or less 14.8 million Americans in any given year. Furthermore, the researchers discovered that upon taking a closer look at the issue from participants that have been screened for depression, only 8.4 percent of all adults surveyed screened positive for the mood disorder, but out of these numbers, only 28.7 percent received any treatment.

On the other hand, of the adults who had been receiving some form of treatment, only 29.9 percent actually screened positive for depression.

Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and the lead author of the paper published in the journal JAMA International Medicine said that the findings were surprising, considering how there had been a substantial increase in prescribing antidepressants over the past several years. The research put things in a new light. Olfson said, "not only are there problems with depressed individuals not receiving any treatment, there are also problems with matching people who receive treatment to the right treatment."

Detection of depressions simply isn't enough. Dr. Dara H. Sorkin of the University of California Irvine told Reuters Health by email, "The health care system needs to be better prepared to offer patients appropriate mental health services that are affordable, concordant with their personal and cultural values and linguistic preferences, and in line with what has been shown to be most effective given an individual's mental health need."

Gaps in mental health care still continue to persist, especially those with less privileged backgrounds - and even with the Affordable Care Act in place, the barriers that patients face in receiving mental health care won't likely come down anytime soon.