Analyzing Clinical Depressive Symptoms in Twitter

 350 million people are suffering from clinical depression worldwide.  27 million Americans are diagnosed with clinical depression that is responsible for more than 30,000 suicides each year.  Over 90% of people who commit suicide have been diagnosed with clinical depression or another diagnosable mental illness.  According to the World Mental Health Survey conducted in 17 countries, about 5% of people reported having an episode of depression.  Depression remains undiagnosed, untreated or under-treated phenomenon due to various reasons such as the denial of illness or the social stigma associated with it .  Early recognition of depression symptoms and their treatment through timely intervention can prevent the onset of major depression.  A common global effort to manage depression involves detecting depression through survey-based methods via phone or online questionnaires . However, these studies suffer from under-representation, sampling biases and incomplete information. Additionally, large temporal gaps between data collection and dissemination of findings can delay administration of timely and appropriate remedial measures. Motivation

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