A silent epidemic of depression among adolescents in the Middle East and North Africa region : emerging tribulation

Unipolar depressive disorder, otherwise known as depression or clinical depression, is a debilitating mood disorder common among adolescents worldwide (Thapar et al. 2012) and is the second leading cause of death in this age group. In particular, adolescents are identified as those who fall between 10 and 19 years of age (Csikszentmihalyi 2020). Over the past decade, incidences of depression have shown an upward trend across all age groups, with a noticeable increase among adolescents, reaching unprecedented levels worldwide (Thapar et al. 2012). To illustrate, the incidence of depression has increased from 172 million in 1990 to 258 million in 2017, indicating a 49.86% increase (Liu et al. 2020). This suggests that depression remains a pressing public health issue globally.