Free testing offered for those with the blues

Jennifer Holmes Arizona Daily Wildcat Francisco Moreno, medical director of inpatient services, discusses National Depression Screening Day yesterday at University Medical Center. UMC is offering free screenings for signs of depression tomorrow from 5-8 p.m.

The University of Arizona Psychiatry Research Department tomorrow is offering free depression and bipolar disorder screenings from 5-8 p.m. at the University Medical Center.

UMC is participating in National Depression Screening Day to increase awareness of mental illnesses.

Joelle Reizes, assistant director of the national program, said knowing about depression and its symptoms is important for everyone - including college students.

"For a lot of college students, the stress of college life can trigger depression," Reizes said. "It's important for everyone to recognize this."

Symptoms of depression - extreme sadness and low self-esteem - do not disappear for weeks, Reizes said.

It is important for students to be tested since depression is more common than most people realize, said Francisco Moreno, UMC medical director of inpatient services and UA assistant psychiatry professor.

"Young adults are at high risk for having this," he said. "At any given time, 5 percent of the general population has this disease."

Depression and manic depression are genetic illnesses that first appear during adolescence, Moreno said.

"Fifty percent (of those who have depression) will have their first episode before age 25," Moreno said.

People can also be tested for bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, which causes alternating periods of extreme elation and depression, he said.

The psychiatry research department is advertising the event by urging students to "get more than a test score - get back your life." Researchers encourage those who believe they are at risk for the diseases to be tested.

National Depression Screening Day is held each year during Mental Illness Awareness Week, developed by Harvard psychiatrist Douglas Jacobs in 1989.

"He (Jacobs) noticed there was a lot of other tests admin-istered in the late 1980s, but they weren't psychological," Reizes said. "With the aid of the American Psychiatric Association, he developed this."

UA National Depression Screening Day participants will hear a brief bilingual lecture on the diseases, watch a video and take a one-page written test, Moreno said.

The test was developed for National Depression Screening Day by Harvard's psychiatry department. Researchers ask participants to rate frequency of feelings like worthlessness and hopelessness, and symptoms of manic depression.

The test will be self-administered and screened by student volunteers and clinicians, Moreno said.

"It (the test) doesn't give a diagnosis," he said. "It tells you whether or not you're likely to have these symptoms (reoccur), and whether you should seek further help at this point."

Moreno said the test graders will allow a number of points for each answer. The final score determines a participant's likelihood of developing clinical depression.

Test takers scoring high or giving alarming answers will be referred to a professional for treatment.

Depression affects more than 17.6 million people a year, Charter Behavioral Health Systems reported. One in four women and one in eight men have depressive episodes in their lifetime. Depression causes half of all suicides.

Manic depression affects less people - nearly one in 100 - but may lead to what Charter calls "participation in high risk act-ivities that are likely to lead to painful results."

The screenings will be held University Medical Center Room 5403. Moreno said he expects between 150 and 200 people to attend.

Erin Mahoney can be reached via e-mail at Erin.Mahoney@wildcat.arizona.edu.