Washington (SmartAboutHealth) - The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that primary care providers should be routinely screening teenage patients for major depression.

The task force has found that a routine screening of adolescents can be more beneficial than harmful. There was no evidence found that children under the age of 12 should be screened however.

Studies showed that 5.6% of adolescents from 13 to 18 and 2.8% of children have major depression at any given time.

Although suicide is the most important risk associated with the depression, school performance, poor social functioning, physical illness, substance abuse and early pregnancy can also be a result of major depression.

The task force assigned a “B” grade to its recommendation of screening. “High certainty that the net benefit is moderate or there is moderate certainty that the net benefit is moderate to substantial.”

Laurie Flynn, executive director of the TeenScreen mental health testing program at Columbia University urges pediatricians and physicians to begin routing screening of adolescents.