As part of National Depression Screening Day, mental health screenings and educational materials about depression were provided across the country Thursday.
Leading the campaign in Wisconsin is Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, who, for the first time, made a depression screening test available online at her website, which will remain available for a full year. The screening, Lawton said, is quick, easy, free and provides potentially depressed individuals with information regarding steps they can take to follow-up the Internet diagnoses.
Lawton said she has been planning for National Depression Screening Day for months and has contacted employers throughout Wisconsin telling them to invite their employees to participate in a screening test.
"We’re excited to announce that we are extending the most invitations than any other state in the nation," Lawton said. "We've insured that three-quarters of a million people are going to get an invitation directly."
Lawton not only contacted the workplaces, but also informed different universities within the state about the screening.
Each university was given information about the test, Lawton added, and then planned how to inform their students. According to Lawton, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay students received a personal e-mail from Chancellor Bruce Shepard providing them with information about the date as well as advising students to participate in the screening.
Lawton said all university students should take the online test.
"For people between the ages of 15-34, in Wisconsin, suicide is the second-highest cause of death," Lawton said. "There are only two ways to prevent that: one is with listening and two, is when they do the depression screening and do a follow-up."
Dr. Jeffrey Anders, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at University Health Services, said college students do not generally differ a whole lot from the general public, yet 10-20 percent of the population — a significantly high number — will have a depression episode.
"College students can be at risk [for depression] with the transition from being at home in a familiar environment with support to a new place with a lot of demands, a shift of autonomy, and even less support around, a lot of students can suffer depression episodes," Anders said.
Both Anders and Lawton said depression shouldn't be seen as a stigma but as an illness that can be cured.
"It's so important for us to make it a topic of legitimate conservation," Lawton said. "It’s one way to reduce the stigma, for all of history, it seems to have been some type of shame, which has no place there."
This stigma seems to be the biggest obstacle to getting help, Lawton added, and it is no more shameful to suffer from a mental issue than suffer from a physical ailment.
"This disease is common, it is treatable, and recovery is possible; we want you to be healthy," Lawton said. "We want you to find the means possible to beat it and to get on with a productive life."
Anders said UHS offers help and services to anyone who thinks they may be suffering from depression and advice to students who have a friend suffering from the illness.
