You may or may not know that the most quoted statistic for the number of people who have Depression is one in five in their lifetime. But how correct is this?  Are a lot more people affected by depression but keeping it to themselves?  A recent poll by Turning Point put the number at 3 in every 4 people but a friend of mine reckons everyone is affected.

I was a bit surprised when my friend said to me that she thinks everyone has Depression at some point.  She told me everyone she knows has had it in one form or another.  She’s a sociable person so she knows a lot of people.  She argued that she could see it in people but that some people didn’t acknowledge it was there or don’t talk about it.  This is certainly true, we know that a lot of people are put off from seeking help or even talking about how they feel because of the stigma that surrounds Depression.   This can make it hard to say how many people have Depression with any degree of accuracy.

However, I’m not convinced that everyone is affected by Depression.  Thinking about all the people I know, I’m pretty sure about 40% haven’t had Depression.  Or perhaps they just haven’t told me about it.  Also, having had depression myself, I probably attract other people who are prone to it as friends.

In January 2010 a poll on behalf of Turning Point (http://bit.ly/a9R0g9) put the number of people with Depression at 3 out of every 4.  That’s a lot of people, however this research only covered just over 1000 people and took place over one week in mid-January - a time when most people feel low - so it may not be a definite statistic

This isn’t scientific and as a friend-of-a-friend poll is not the view of DAS but how many people have Depression at some point in their lives?  Do you think it’s everyone, one in five people, three out of every four?  One thing that we can be sure of is that whatever the figure is, it’s too many people.