1. Depression is one of the most common mental health conditions, so its statistics shape how the NHS plans support.
2. Roughly one in ten people in the UK will meet the criteria for depression at some point in their life.
3. In England, surveys suggest around one in six adults has a common mental health problem such as depression or anxiety in any given week.
4. That makes depression far more common than schizophrenia, which affects roughly one in a hundred people over a lifetime.
5. Every figure here comes from surveys and NHS records, so all of them are estimates.

Age, sex and ethnicity

1. Age
   1. Rates climb steeply through adolescence, and about one in eight young people aged five to nineteen in England has a diagnosable mental health condition.
   2. Reported rates are highest in mid-adulthood, roughly the mid-forties to the mid-sixties, and lower again in the oldest age groups.
   3. Depression in later life is probably under-counted, because low mood is sometimes put down to physical illness or bereavement instead.
2. Sex
   1. Women are diagnosed with depression roughly twice as often as men.
   2. In England about one in five women and about one in eight men report a common mental health problem in a given week.
   3. Part of that gap is a real difference and part of it is reporting, because men are less likely to seek help or to describe their mood as low.
3. Ethnicity
   1. Reported rates differ between ethnic groups.
   2. People from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds in the UK are less likely to be referred for talking therapy, and more likely to reach mental health services at the point of crisis.
   3. Access, stigma, language and the words people use for distress all shape these numbers, so they measure diagnosis as much as illness.

Recovery rates

1. About half of the people who complete a course of NHS talking therapy for depression recover.
2. Even without treatment an episode often lifts within about six months to a year, and treatment usually shortens it.
3. Relapse is common, because roughly half of those who have one episode go on to have another.
4. After two or three episodes the chance of a further one rises again, which is why some people stay on treatment for longer.
5. Recovery rates depend on the type of support offered and on how early it starts.
6. Recovery is the usual outcome, and most people who have an episode of depression get better.

Limits of the figures

1. Most figures come from self-report surveys, so how honestly people answer shapes the totals.
2. Survey samples miss people who are homeless, in hospital or unwilling to take part, and those groups often have poorer mental health.
3. Diagnosis rates count only the people who reach a GP, so they reflect who feels able to ask for help.
4. The ICD criteria have changed between editions, so comparing rates across decades is not straightforward.

Turning this into marks

1. When two statistics are asked for, make them genuinely separate rather than one figure restated.
2. Give the figure with the group and the period it belongs to, such as about one in six adults in England in a given week, because a bare number does not secure the knowledge mark.
3. The mark most often lost is giving the lifetime prevalence figure when the question asked about recovery.