Impact of Depression on Young Adults' Wellbeing in the UK Assignment Sample

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Introduction

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The study will be based on by considering the “The Influence of Depression on the wellbeing of Young Adults in the UK” as the topic for research”. The report will be developed by the utilisation of the two theories which namely includes the Biopsychosocial Model and the Recovery Model. The opportunities and the challenges that are witnessed by the partnership working for mitigating depression amongst the Young adults in UK will be analysed by the application of these two theories in the report. The report serves the purpose of providing an extensive explanation of depression and its present context within UK. The report also serve the rationale of developing innovative recommendations that mitigates the rising depression instances amongst the Young adults in UK.

Learning Outcome 1

According to Ionescu et al. (2019), Depression is explained as the mood disorder which results in the persisting feeling of anxiety and loss in the interest for daily activities. On the other hand, Kumar et al. (2016) have opposed by stating that the depression is a mental disorder that is responsible for causing significant weight change and pessisism. Therefore, it is observed that the depression can be explained as the mental health disorder which is characterized by prolonged anxiety, decreased activity, pessimist behaviour and significant weight change. The depression amongst the Young Adults in the UK is emerging to be a real cause of interest as it is proving to be a major mental health issue amongst this population. In the works of Mojtabai et al. (2016), it is observed that the young adult has surfaced as one of the most vulnerable population who are susceptible to the onset of depression. On the other hand, Stroud et al. (2015) have posed as argument which states that the physical well-being needs to be prioritised as compared to mental health issues for the young adults. The previous statement is limited in terms of credibility as the researcher has failed to conduct data triangulation which undermines the validity of the statement significantly. Therefore, it is understood that the depression amongst the Young adult is a cause of significant concern.

There has been a significant rise in the number of the depression patients who have belonged within the age bracket of the young adults. It is evidenced by the fact that the number of young adults in the UK who have been diagnosed with clinical depression has increased from 26% in 2017 to 31% in 2018 (Rees, 2020). Furthemore, the number of male young adults in UK who are suffering from depression and mental distress has grown to 19% in 2018 (age 16-24) whereas the population of female young adults (age 16-24) who are diagnosed with mental distress and depression has increased to 32% in 2018 (Gagné et al. 2021). Therefore, it indicates that the distribution of the disease is quite significant in terms of the current context. One of the major impact of the depression is associated with the rise in the instances of suicide. It is because more than 52% of the young adults in UK who have committed suicide have been understood to be suffering from depression (Youngminds, 2022). Therefore, it indicates that the treatment of the depression among the young adults should be considered as priority as it can prevent the sharp spike in the suicide cases of the Young adults.

According to Pilgrim (2015), the biopsychosocial model is defined as the method for gaining an understanding on the physical and mental health with the use of multiple systems lens that comprises of the influence of biology, social environment and psychology. This model is extremely important for this topic as the depression is often driven by the factors such as stress and the ethnic differences and the analysis of such factors that leads to depression is effectively carried out by the psycho and the social factors of the biopsychological model respectively. Therefore, it is observed that the application of the theoretical perspective from biopsychosocial model is important for this topic area. On the other hand, the recovery model is explained as the person centred and holistic approach for mental health care and driven by the theoretical perspectives of recovering from any mental health condition through the use of patient directed intervention and findings gap within the service (Sarah Lyon, 2023). This model is significant for the research topic as the short term depression converts to chronic depression due to the lack in the proper treatment policy and the use of the recovery model plays a key role in identifying the gaps within the care practices. Therefore, it is observed that the application of the theoretical perspective from the recovery model is important for this topic. The biopsychosocial model is more focused on the identifying the factors in the context of social, psychological and economical that leads to depression or could be used in the intervention practice, however, the recovery model is mostly based on recovering the health as compared to developing intervention or identifying the causative factors. Therefore, it is observed that the biopsychosocial model high focus on intervention whereas the recovery model has low focus on intervention.

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Learning Outcome 2

Partnership working is defined as the initiative where the multiple organisations pool in their resources for achieving the common goal of enhancing the quality and efficiency of health care service provision (Sheehy, 2020).

Challenges

One of the major requirements to drive the partnership working and improving the quality of the treatment that is provided to Young adults in UK who are suffering from depression is extensive research in the social and psychological factors that lead to the depression among the patient. It is because the Biopsychosocial theory indicates that the interaction of the social, biological and psychological factors that lead to mental health issues such as depression varies greatly and their combined effect on the mental health state of the young adults are the most complex. In the works of Porter (2020), it is supported that for each particular age bracket and specific mental health disorder there is a unique interaction between the three elements in Biopsychosocial theory. Furthermore, Knapp et al. (2016) have agreed that the psychological and social factor’s interaction is quite complicated in terms of eliciting depression amongst the young adults are quite perplexing and needs further exploration. Therefore, it is observed that the extensive research by partnership working in accordance to Biopsychosocial model is important for assessing depression. However, such initiative from the partnership working is not supported by the recent austerity measures of spending cuts on healthcare. It is because the firms involved in the partnership working can only resort to extensive research if their shared financial resources are also backed up by the government investment in forms of research grants, however, the austerity measures of reduction in government investment makes it impossible to conduct the extensive research. This is evidenced by the fact that the several healthcare research has been halted after the government healthcare spending has dropped by 40-60% in UK (Oxford, 2023). Furthermore, the research on depression is quite a cost intensive affair since it involves large sample studies that are based on phenomenological and observational study and renders the perception of conducting extensive research with decreased government funding on the lines of improbability. Therefore, it is observed that the austerity measure pose as a significant challenge to the study of depression amongst the young adults in UK in accordance to the Biopsychosocial model.

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In addition to that, the impact of depression on the mental health is understood to vary in the females and males in the young adult age bracket as female tend to suffer from anxiety and the males suffer from social isolation. However, the health care interventions for treating depression are standardised and does not take the above variation in clinical symptoms and effect into consideration. Similar evidence can be observed in the works of Vashist and Schneider (2015) as the authors suggest that the patient suffering from depression have often complained about the standardised approach to the clinical condition as compared to customised approach. This creates a huge gap in terms of health care service to the patients in the young adults. However, in order to address such gap in healthcare, the partnership organisation has been trying to pool in their financial resources and develop a more patient focused approach, which is cost intensive initiative since it involves the trial tests of several drug combinations. However, the presence of austerity measures such as increased licensing charges in drug testing adversely affects the principle of partnership working healthcare firms as it renders the principle of sharing pooled financial resource to be ineffective due to the high costs. A critical study performed by Correia et al. (2017) suggest that the austerity measures such as the increased license payments and tax has proved to be challenging for the improvement in quality of mental healthcare services such as depression. Therefore, it is analysed that the austerity measure of increased license payments has emerged as a major challenge for the partnership working when it comes to addressing the gap in service quality for the interventions of treating depression amongst the young adults in UK. Furthermore, the Recovery model signifies the fact that the gap in the healthcare services can only be improved if the extensive testing is performed. In the opinion of Jacob (2015), it is concluded that the deployment of Recovery Model is characterised by the presence of positive association between extensive testing and proper mitigation of healthcare service gaps. Hence, it is observed that the lack of adherence to the recovery model has posed as the reason behind the challenge.

Opportunities

One of the major opportunities that the partnership working can work with, when it comes to proper assessment of the depression is the integration of the new policy tool, “Time to Change” (Gov, 2022). It is because the partnership working in addressing the effect of depression can only work if the shared resources of the test population is quite large, which requires high stakeholder involvement and such requirement is the met by the new policy tool as it is known for its capacity for examining the impact of proposed intervention in addressing effect of depression by considering increased stakeholder involvement. In the findings of Murphy (2022), it is agreed that the presence of new policy through the consideration of increased stakeholder engagement has been emerging as a major opportunity for the partnership working when it comes to solving mental health issues like depression. Similar evidence can also be observed in the work of McCulloch et al. (2015) as the authors suggest that the new policy tools might prove effective in addressing the influence of depression amongst the young adults in UK and serves as a platform of opportunity for the healthcare system of the nation to reduce the rising instances of clinical depression within this age bracket. This is in coherence with the Recovery model as it states that the patient centred approach to improve service quality can only improve with the increased participation of stakeholders in terms of procuring feedback on the mental healthcare intervention practice such as depression and modification of existing healthcare policy in mental health condition such as depression. Analogous observations are accounted in the works of Field and Reed (2016) as the researchers suggest that the implications of recovery model is characterised by the positive influence of stakeholder involvement and transformation of healthcare policies when it comes to enhancing the quality and effectiveness of effective patient directed approach. Therefore, it is analysed that the integration of new policy such as Time to change as an opportunity for improving the partnership working to resolve the influence of depression on young adults in UK is based on the Recovery model.

One of the major opportunities that the partnership working could focus on, when it comes to addressing depression within the young adult is the development of recovery colleges. The recovery colleges are deemed as the educational institutions that provides the opportunity for imparting education to the healthcare service providers for improving the competency in mental health intervention approaches (Thompson et al., 2021). This serves as an opportunity for the partnership working as one of the major principles of the partnership working focuses is based on knowledge transfer or sharing of information with the stakeholders and the recovery college is able to deliver on such requirement as it lays emphasis on sharing educational information from the patients who have been previously diagnosed with depression as well as mental health practitioners. From the findings of Ebrahim et al. (2018), it is supported that the recovery colleges indicates a positive association between information sharing in the mental health practices and stakeholder participation. In opposition to the above findings, Meddings et al. (2019) have posed as an argument that the establishment of the recovery college is expensive and has reduced implication for the mental health care improvement due to presence of inequalities. The previous statement is limited in terms of credibility as the researcher have failed to consider the validity and the reliability test for the research variables which subjugates the credibility of the statement significantly. Therefore, it is analysed that the recovery college as an opportunity might have a positive impact on the partnership working initiatives to mitigate the depression amongst the young adults in UK.

Learning Outcome 3

One of the major influence of the depression is the rise in the number of suicide cases. Most of the instances of such occurrence is associated with the unregulated online content that encourages self-harm and suicide attempt as a means of reducing the effect of depression. However, there is no legislation that is present in the current scenario that is able to tackle such unregulated information sharing in mental health aspects. Therefore, it is recommended that the new legislation and bills should be brought in as innovation and passed to discourage the user to post such misleading content and punish any such perpetrator with legal ramifications. Being said that, the UK government is working up and drafting the Online Safety Bill which plays a key role in tackling online harms. This legislation will also be held responsible for tackling dangerous and misleading content that relates depression with suicide, self-harm and eating disorder (Trengove et al., 2023). Jia (2022) has supported that the enactment of new legislation and bills is recommended and might have a positive impact on the incidence rate of depression cases. Therefore, it is analysed that the recommended solution of developing new legislation is innovative and might have a positive effect on the decrease in the depression amongst the young adults in UK.

Another major reason that leads to the depression amongst the young adult is the lack of employment and loneliness. It is evidenced by the fact that more than 11% of the young adults have cited unemployment as one of the major drivers for their depression whereas 25% of the young adults have opined loneliness as the reason behind their depressive perception (Lee et al., 2019; Achterbergh et al., 2022). There has been national strategies to fight unemployment, however, there has been seldom any national program that has focused on addressing loneliness. Therefore, the innovation in terms of integrating practices to address loneliness is necessary and it is recommended that a new national level strategic framework should be deployed which focuses on tackling the loneliness and driving employment simultaneously. This suggestion is already taken up for serious consideration as the DCMS and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are working together to develop the Kickstart scheme which will focus on reducing loneliness and train the frontline staff to manage mental health for retaining employment to reduce depression. Similar evidence can be observed in the work of Boardman and Parsonage (2017) as the researchers suggest that the improvement through the addition of new strategic framework at the national level for addressing depression is necessary and serves as an essential recommendation. On the contrary, Lien et al. (2019) has argued that the change of practitioner’s attitude to address the mental health issues like depression is more important as compared to the other factors. The previous finding is limited in the context of reliability since the research has been conducted by considering a restricted sample size which undermines the credibility of the statement. Hence, it is evaluated that the recommendation of developing a national strategic framework by combining initiatives to tackle loneliness and unemployment might have a positive impact in addressing the depression amongst the young adults in the UK.

The young adults fall within the age bracket of the 18-24 years old. This indicates that most of the cases of depression amongst the young adults is associated with the college students, which is further exemplified by the fact that more than 45% of the college students in UK has been suffering from depression. There are existing practices that educates the student about the adverse effects of the depression and promote the practices to address it. However, there is no system to monitor and report the mental health of the students and begs for innovation in this regard. Therefore, it is recommended that a well-being charter should be developed which will monitor the student behaviour in terms of depressing thoughts and suicidal inclinations by comparing their behaviour with set KPI’s. In the findings of Bateman et al. (2020), it is supported that the Department for Education (DfE) is attempting to address mental health issues of the students and staffs in colleges by analysing key performance indicator in mental health through the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter 2021. Therefore, the recommendation of developing mental health wellbeing charter is justified for addressing the rising incidents of depression amongst the young adults in UK.

Conclusion

The findings of the report indicate that the austerity measures serve as the challenge that could hinder the partnership working when it comes to improving the intervention practice quality in treating depression. The outcomes of the report suggest that the recovery college pose as the opportunity to the partnership working for improving the quality of the care practices that are associated with the management of depression. From the report, it is concluded that the integration of new legislation and bills, developing a national strategic framework by combining initiatives to tackle loneliness and unemployment and developing mental health wellbeing charter are the three recommendations to improve management of depression incidence rate amongst the young adults in UK.

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