What is it about?

Comparison of the prevalence of depression between three separate cohorts of middle-aged adults measured identically over twenty years. We found that more recent generations of middle-aged adults had a higher prevalence of chronic diseases and disability what largely explained the increase in major depression rates.

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Why is it important?

This knowledge is important for prevention purposes and policy makers, since not only risk factors were discovered for a higher prevalence of depression, also protective factors that hampered depression rates to rise more.

Perspectives

Shifts in the prevalence of somatic diseases in the general community will keep impacting the prevalence of depression in the future and probably vice versa. Disentangling the mechanisms by which physical diseases and mental diseases interrelate with each other might provide opportunities to intervene in an earlier stage of the disease.

Hans Jeuring
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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This page is a summary of: Secular trends in the prevalence of major and subthreshold depression among 55–64-year olds over 20 years, Psychological Medicine, December 2017, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0033291717003324.
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