Primary Prevention of Depression in Adolescents:An Introduction to New Approaches to Promote Resilience and Personal Growth

Mental health is integral to our well-being and is as important as being physically healthy. The growing incidence of mental health issues in adolescents is a reflection of the reality that confronts us today. Primary Prevention (PP) of mental illnesses especially depression in children and adolescents has only recently taken a hold as distinct from secondary and tertiary preventions. PP for adolescent depression encompasses school based resilience building interventions and community based stigma reduction programme at large. However, the aim of this article is limited to the introduction of approaches that help gradually build and strengthen the resilience factors and promoting the well being by developing new positive behavior among normal adolescents. This new recognition was born out of the necessity as new Mental Health Care Act (MHCA, 2017) places more emphasis on prevention of mental illness and the world health day of this year was celebrated with the theme of "Depression-let's Talk" in terms of preventive measures. Depression is a major public health problem in children and adolescents, which makes the identification and implementation of effective interventions an increasing concern at universal or PP level. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to discuss theoretically different psychological interventions for depression in terms of primary prevention. This article presents and discusses new interventions with rationale, such as the Positive Psychology and Mindfulness based interventions for Adolescents, which suggest that the focus of interventions for depressed adolescents should integrate well-being enhancement to achieve optimal functioning as a primary prevention strategies.