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A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

washingtonpost.com

411–420 of 469 posts

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#411
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post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

A lot of people didn't think the guy in the white house could matter that much until Trump. As a non-American a lot of Americans would likely be envious of your lifestyle right now. The 30 million currently unemployed for sure, the people who also can't get to a hospital if they need surgery or healthcare because they're closed because of our botched (guy in wh) response care as well. The essential workers with no he…

I see your points and I don't understand those who disagree with you. 1. Your life is directly affected by the actions of those in power. 2. The future of your country is directly affected by the actions of those in power.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Cana…

This sounds like the philosophy that drives the incel groups. If you were to ask women they would say the exact same thing as well. And internet dating is very heavily driven towards superficial things, whereas if you meet someone IRL you might be able to find things to connect on.

It’s a logical fallacy to imply that someone’s argument sounding similar to the ideology of people you don’t like has any bearing on whether it’s valid or not.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but I'm consuming a mostly carnivore diet, I struggled with gout for years and since I went keto and then pretty much carnivore I haven't had a flare up. I eat meat, fish, eggs, cheese and cauliflower (my stool seem fine with or without fiber but a little bit makes me feel more "flushed out", lol). The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) and dehydration in my opinion and the carnivore diet and…

> The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) Citation? Because isn't gout generally thought by the medical establishment to be caused by high-protein, low vegetable diets that raise uric acid?

>> The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar)

>Citation? Because isn't gout generally thought by the medical establishment to be caused by high-protein, low vegetable diets that raise uric acid?

As I've heard from the person doing carnivore this diet is low-protein and high-fat one.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#414

Diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression are very broad because they are necessary as tools for practicing doctors seeing patients (as opposed to applying them to a random selection of people). If you turn the process back, and just ask how many people in the population fit under them, you'll always, even in normal times, get an unexpectedly large number. That doesn't imply that anything is wrong or that anythi…

I'm a PhD in clinical psychology, currently working with clients, whose research has focused on the psychometric evaluation of questionnaire measures. I have no idea what you're talking about. The diagnostic criteria are not "very broad because they are necessary as tools". The diagnostic criteria are meant to be sufficient criteria for diagnosing a disorder. Questionnaire-based measures act as a scientifically valid…

Hold on, do I understand correctly your comment about the 20% false positive rate? So even if exactly ZERO Americans were experiencing depression, a random sampling would indicate 20% of Americans are showing signs of depression? And if it's 20% for both tests, that would would correspond to a 36% false positive rate for at least one condition [0]. So the headline that a third of Americans are showing signs of anxiety or depression is consistent with what you'd expect to observe if there was zero (or very small) true prevalence? How does that work out?

[0] assuming test results for anxiety and depression are uncorrelated, which seems unlikely. But even if they were 100% correlated, the joint FPR would still be 20%.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a PhD in clinical psychology, currently working with clients, whose research has focused on the psychometric evaluation of questionnaire measures. I have no idea what you're talking about. The diagnostic criteria are not "very broad because they are necessary as tools". The diagnostic criteria are meant to be sufficient criteria for diagnosing a disorder. Questionnaire-based measures act as a scientifically valid…

Hold on, do I understand correctly your comment about the 20% false positive rate? So even if exactly ZERO Americans were experiencing depression, a random sampling would indicate 20% of Americans are showing signs of depression? And if it's 20% for both tests, that would would correspond to a 36% false positive rate for at least one condition [0]. So the headline that a third of Americans are showing signs of anxiet…

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2014/11/12/doctors-dont-k...

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#416

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope…

Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Cana…

This effect is called hypergamy and it's always been around. Tinder and the likes just exaggerate it. It's sort of like increasing wealth inequality but for men's dating. There's been genetic studies which show that most women that have lived procreated, while during some periods most men did not. Upside is that if you belong to the top 5% of attractive men this is the best time to be alive :)

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#417
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that may be true, most European countries still undercount the true death rates since there are large discrepancies between each country's official covid deaths and excess deaths.

Playing devil's advocate, how are we sure excess deaths are due to covid and not the lockdowns instead? (Suicides, cancelled surgeries, etc.)

Not all countries have lockdowns to the same degree, yet they all have discrepancies between excess deaths and official covid deaths.

Clearly, not all excess deaths are covid deaths though, a minority of them are certainly related but not directly caused by it.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#418

Diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression are very broad because they are necessary as tools for practicing doctors seeing patients (as opposed to applying them to a random selection of people). If you turn the process back, and just ask how many people in the population fit under them, you'll always, even in normal times, get an unexpectedly large number. That doesn't imply that anything is wrong or that anythi…

I'm a PhD in clinical psychology, currently working with clients, whose research has focused on the psychometric evaluation of questionnaire measures. I have no idea what you're talking about. The diagnostic criteria are not "very broad because they are necessary as tools". The diagnostic criteria are meant to be sufficient criteria for diagnosing a disorder. Questionnaire-based measures act as a scientifically valid…

>"very broad because they are necessary as tools" >"diagnostic criteria are meant to be sufficient criteria for diagnosing a disorder"

Aren't these equivalent ideas? I don't think the parent comment was meant to be critical so much as it was to make an assessment. An overall rate of 80% accurate for a questionnaire instrument seems like a fine tool.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#419

As a person with a history of depression and social anxiety I really do feel calmer since the crisis started, as if my state of mind was made for this kind of life. Less people on the streets, it's quieter, no one breathing down my neck in the supermarket, home office, no expectations on how to pick my clothes, how to behave, no trying to hide the weird stuff I eat (carnivore, high meat, raw, cooked and aged whatever…

Not a response to parent comment, but does anyone know of studies of people that describe their self-assessment? My impression is that most people think they're weirder than they are, i.e. most people fall within a band of what everyone would call normal, but they often self-assess as weird in one way or the other. i.e. for parameter X which typically ranges between x and x' and for which people estimate themselves a…

There's a bias induced by how people act in public. You don't normally see people's quirks, you only see the most normal side of their behaviour. It doesn't occur to you that they also have weird ticks - possibly weirder than yours.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#420
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say I share the same feelings as you, but it certainly would be great to see young Americans be more excited about the future and I think some big investment in infrastructure could be a way to make that happen. There are many people worse off in other Countries that are happy because they are seeing vast improvements year over year and their own value goes up proportionately to how much effort gets put in. W…

What future? What is there to be excited about? Can't actually spend money at the federal and state level aside from tax cuts and the military without being met with resistance and a subset of politicians and economists screaming bloody murder about super dooper hyper inflation that's totally going to happen any day now we promise (but don't worry about the last 40 years of us saying it, this time we're sure we're co…

Actually the central banks are very good at causing inflation. The problem is that the only way to get access to central bank money is through a mortgage or a student loan. Corporations are not in need of financing beyond surviving the current lock down. So what we get to see is inflation in higher education and house prices.

If you want to borrow money from a bank as a 26 year old startup founder you are probably getting a bad deal with high interest rates. You're not seeing the benefit of the negative interest rates. Going from a 13% interest rate to 10% isn't going to magically make your startup profitable.

Basically the policies have an effect but they are completely inaccessible for those who actually need them. Because of the selective access the stimulus is actually causing market distortions that hurt those who don't have access to the stimulus.

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