First Onset Of Major Depression Research Articles

Psychiatric sequelae of posttraumatic stress disorder in women.

The risk for first-onset major depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders associated with prior posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was estimated in a sample of women. The National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule, revised according to DSM-III-R, was used to measure lifetime psychiatric disorders in a stratified random sample of 801 mothers of children, who participated in a study of cognitive and psychiatric outcomes by level of birth weight. Cox proportional hazards models with time-dependent covariates were used to calculate the hazards ratios of first onset of other disorders following PTSD. The lifetime prevalence of traumatic events was 40% and of PTSD, 13.8%. Posttraumatic stress disorder signaled increased risks for first-onset major depression (hazards ratio, 2.1) and alcohol use disorder (hazards ratio, 3.0). The risk for major depression following PTSD was of the same magnitude as the risk for major depression following other anxiety disorders. Women with preexisting anxiety and PTSD had significantly increased risk for first-onset major depression. Additional analysis showed that preexisting major depression increased women's vulnerability to the PTSD-inducing effects of traumatic events and risk for exposure to traumatic events. Posttraumatic stress disorder influences the risk for first-onset major depression and alcohol use disorder. The causal explanation of these temporally secondary disorders is unclear and might involve the effect of PTSD or underlying vulnerabilities exposed by the traumatic experience.

Obsessive compulsive disorder and mood disorders: a family study.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) often coexists with major depression (MD), with rates varying from 35 to 75%. The nature of the depressive symptomatology can be investigated by familial aggregation analysis, assuming that the disorder which occurs first is the one showing greater genetic liability and should have higher familial concentration. Therefore, the aim of our study was to assess the familial loading for OCD and mood disorders in the families of OCD patients with different chronology of onset for the mood disorder, to evaluate how the familial pattern of the diseases differs with different temporal sequences in which the two syndromes occur. A total of 172 OCD patients entered the study; 112 were pure OCD probands, 12 were unable to separate the onset of the two syndromes, 11 had prior mood disorder, and 37 of them had experienced their first depressive episodes after the onset of OCD. Information about the family history was collected by means of the Family History-Research Diagnostic Criteria (FH-RDC) and by directly interviewing at least 2 relatives per family. Morbidity risks for OCD indicate a familial concentration of the disorder in all groups, except the MD/OCD group. We found the highest rate of relatives affected by mood disorders in the families of patients with first onset of MD (28.8%), whereas in the other 3 groups MRs were much lower. These results suggest the affective nature of OCD patients who experienced first onset of MD. Thus, the chronology of onset seems to identify 2 different typologies of familial distribution.

Are Adolescents Changed by an Episode of Major Depression?

This study examined whether adolescents having a first onset of major depression are changed by the experience (i.e., does having an episode of depression result in residual effects that did not exist before the episode?). Among 1,507 community adolescents assessed at two time points approximately 1 year apart 45 experienced and recovered from a first episode of depression between the two assessments. These adolescents were contrasted with never-depressed control subjects on an array of depression-related psychosocial variables before and after the episode. Psychosocial scars (characteristics evident after but not before the episode) included internalizing behavior problems, stressful major life events, excessive emotional reliance on others, cigarette smoking and subsyndromal depression symptoms. Both before and after the episode, the depressed adolescents reported an elevated level of physical health problems. More scars were found in the present study than in previous research with formerly depressed adults. This is consistent with the hypothesis that early-onset depression is a more pernicious form of the disorder that may impact adolescents more severely than adults.

Social and physical health risk factors for first-onset major depressive disorder in a community sample.

Using prospective data on 3,170 respondents aged 18 years and over who were at risk for a first-onset major depression from the New Haven site of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) study, these analyses assessed the effects of social status, physical health status, and social isolation on first-onset depression in a 1-year period, controlling for demographic characteristics and baseline psychiatric factors. Among the assessed potential risk factors, poverty status [odds ratio (OR = 2.034, P < 0.05)] and confinement to a bed or chair (OR = 4.015, P < 0.05) were independently associated with an increased risk for a first-onset depressive episode when controlling for gender, age, past history of substance abuse, and subclinical depressive symptoms. The effects of poverty, and to a lesser degree homebound status, were substantially reduced when controlling for degree of isolation from friends and family, suggesting that social isolation mediates some of the relationships between social and physical statuses and major depression.

Secular trends in lifetime onset of MDD stratified by selected sociodemographic risk factors

We used multivariate proportional hazards (Cox) models to investigate the effects of cohort of birth on age of first onset of major depression measured independently at two occassions, about six years apart, in the first degree relatives of probands with major affective illnesses. We estimated the cohort trends in strata defined by sociodemographic and other measures, to see if the cohort trends are the same across strata. Graphical summaries of the trends reveal a generally consistent pattern of increasing rates and earlier age of onset with successive birth cohorts, across all strata examined. The relatives with a divorced parent had a somewhat delayed secular increase, suggesting either a ceiling effect or an interaction of the two risk factors (recent cohort of birth and divorced parents) such that the combined effect is less than the sum of the individual effects. Otherwise, the cohort effect is persistent and ubiquitous in this sample.

The Changing Rate of Major Depression

To estimate temporal trends in the rates of major depression cross-nationally.Nine epidemiologic surveys and three family studies.Approximately 39,000 subjects in population-based samples from nine epidemiologic surveys, and 4000 relatives from three family studies that were conducted independently but using similar methodology in the 1980s in North America, Puerto Rico, Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific Rim.Age at first onset of major depression by birth cohort and time period.There was an increase in the cumulative lifetime rates of major depression with each successively younger birth cohort at all sites with the exception of the Hispanic samples, in whom the rates in the older cohort (1915 through 1935) were approximately equal to those of the younger cohorts. However, results of fitting statistical models that separate period and cohort effects showed an overall increase in the rates of major depression over time over all countries, although the magnitude of the increase varied by country. The average relative risk of major depression between a particular cohort and the cohort born immediately before varied between 2.6 (95% confidence interval, 1.8 to 3.7) in Florence, Italy, and 1.3 (95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 1.4) in Christchurch, New Zealand. Short-term fluctuations in the rates of major depression during specific time periods and in specific cohorts also varied by country.Cross-nationally, the more recent birth cohorts are at increased risk for major depression. There are, however, variations in the long- and short-term trends for major depression by country, which suggests that the rates in these countries may have been affected by differing historical, social, economic, or biological environmental events. The linking of demographic, epidemiologic, economic, and social indices by country to these changes may clarify environmental conditions that influence the rates of major depression.

Depressive symptoms as relative and attributable risk factors for first-onset major depression.

Using longitudinal data from a community study of 9900 adults drawn from four sites in the United States and interviewed twice, 1 year apart, we investigated the predictors of first-onset major depression. Using odds ratios to estimate relative risk, we found that persons with depressive symptoms, compared with those without such symptoms, were 4.4 times more likely and persons with dysthymia were 5.5 times more likely to develop a first-onset major depression during a 1-year period. The lifetime prevalence rate for depressive symptoms was 24%. The attributable risk is a compound epidemiologic measure that reflects both the relative risk associated with depressive symptoms (4.4) and the prevalence of exposure to that risk (24%). It is a useful measure to document the burden of a risk to the community, and it was determined to be greater than 50%. Thus, more than 50% of cases of first-onset major depression are associated with prior depressive symptoms. The high prevalence of depressive symptoms in the community and their strong association with first-onset major depression make them important from a public health perspective. Because depressive symptoms are often unrecognized and untreated in clinical practice, we conclude that their identification and the development of effective treatments could have implications for the prevention of major depression.

Differences in the effects of divorce on major depression in men and women.

The authors examined the relationship between marital disruption and major depressive episodes. The analyses were based on longitudinal, community-based data from the New Haven Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) program on respondents 18-60 years old. The presence and history of major depression was assessed by using the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Martial disruption was associated with higher prevalence rates of major depression in both men and women, but only men had a greater risk of a first-onset major depression. Differences between men and women in rates of major depression were observed only among married subjects. These findings suggest that the relationship between marital disruption and major depressive episode differs for men and women. They also provide further evidence that differences between men and women in rates of depression vary by marital status.