SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
This article is part of the Research TopicMental health related stigma and mental health status in adolescent and youth in various cultural contextsView all 3 articles
Disease Awareness and Experience of Adolescent Depression Patients: A Meta-synthesis of Qualitative Studies
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China
- 2Shanxi Bethune Hospital, Taiyuan, China
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Objective:To systematically evaluate the cognition and real experience of adolescent patients with depression towards the disease, in order to comprehensively understand the cognitive and psychological predicaments they face and provide a basis for formulating targeted intervention strategies for adolescent patients with depression. Design: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. Methods: Qualitative studies on the cognition and real experience of adolescent patients with depressiontowards the disease were retrieved from Chinese and English databases from the establishment of the databases to June 2025. The quality of the literature was evaluated using the JBI qualitative research quality evaluation standard, and the convergent meta-synthesis method was used for integration. Results: A total of 12 articles were included, and 37 research results were extracted. Two themes and nine sub-themes were identified, namely, cognition ofthe disease (misunderstanding of the disease, stigma towards the disease, and cognition of the prognosis of the disease), and real experience of the illness (diversity of influencing factorsof the illness, somatization symptoms after the illness, emotional and psychological experiences after the illness, reconstruction of interpersonal relationships, predicaments and powerlessness in treatment,and establishment of new values). Conclusion: Teenagers with depression often have cognitive biases and undergo complex, multi-dimensional painful experiences. Healthcare professionals should first assess and restructure the patients' cognitive biases, and provide targeted treatment for their painful experiences. At the same time, scientific disease cognition and intervention strategies should be extended from hospitals to families and schools, and a collaborative support system should be established to jointly address the psychological needs of adolescent patients.
Keywords: adolescents, Depression, Awareness, experience, meta-synthesis
Received: 01 Oct 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 GAO, Guo, Xu, Wang and Cui. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Liping Cui, cuiliping@sxbqeh.com.cn
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