Prevalence of Depression in the Community from 30 Countries between 1994 and 2014

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Abstract

The prevalence of depression may be affected by changes in psychiatric practices and the availability of online mental health information in the past two decades. This study aimed to evaluate the aggregate prevalence of depression in communities from different countries between 1994 and 2014 and to explore the variations in prevalence stratified by geographical, methodological and socio-economic factors. A total of 90 studies were identified and met the inclusion criteria (n = 1,112,573 adults) with 68 studies on single point prevalence, 9 studies on one-year prevalence, and 13 studies on lifetime prevalence of depression. A random-effects model meta-analysis that was performed to calculate the aggregate point, one-year and lifetime prevalence of depression calculated prevalences of 12.9%, 7.2% and 10.8% respectively. Point prevalence of depression was significantly higher in women (14.4%), countries with a medium human development index (HDI) (29.2%), studies published from 2004 to 2014 (15.4%) and when using self-reporting instruments (17.3%) to assess depression. Heterogeneity was identified by meta-regression and subgroup analysis, and response rate, percentage of women and year of publication, respectively, were determined contribute to depression prevalence. This meta-analysis allows benchmarking of the prevalence of depression during the era when online health information emerged, facilitating future comparisons.

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Most cited references 47

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Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in the United States. Results from the National Comorbidity Survey.

R C Kessler, K A McGonagle, S Zhao … (1994)

This study presents estimates of lifetime and 12-month prevalence of 14 DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders from the National Comorbidity Survey, the first survey to administer a structured psychiatric interview to a national probability sample in the United States. The DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders among persons aged 15 to 54 years in the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States were assessed with data collected by lay interviewers using a revised version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Nearly 50% of respondents reported at least one lifetime disorder, and close to 30% reported at least one 12-month disorder. The most common disorders were major depressive episode, alcohol dependence, social phobia, and simple phobia. More than half of all lifetime disorders occurred in the 14% of the population who had a history of three or more comorbid disorders. These highly comorbid people also included the vast majority of people with severe disorders. Less than 40% of those with a lifetime disorder had ever received professional treatment, and less than 20% of those with a recent disorder had been in treatment during the past 12 months. Consistent with previous risk factor research, it was found that women had elevated rates of affective disorders and anxiety disorders, that men had elevated rates of substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder, and that most disorders declined with age and with higher socioeconomic status. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders is greater than previously thought to be the case. Furthermore, this morbidity is more highly concentrated than previously recognized in roughly one sixth of the population who have a history of three or more comorbid disorders. This suggests that the causes and consequences of high comorbidity should be the focus of research attention. The majority of people with psychiatric disorders fail to obtain professional treatment. Even among people with a lifetime history of three or more comorbid disorders, the proportion who ever obtain specialty sector mental health treatment is less than 50%. These results argue for the importance of more outreach and more research on barriers to professional help-seeking.

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Gender differences in depression in 23 European countries. Cross-national variation in the gender gap in depression.

Sarah van de Velde, Piet Bracke, Katia Levecque (2010)

One of the most consistent findings in the social epidemiology of mental health is the gender gap in depression. Depression is approximately twice as prevalent among women as it is among men. However, the absence of comparable data hampers cross-national comparisons of the prevalence of depression in general populations. Using information about the frequency and severity of depressive symptoms from the third wave of the European Social Survey (ESS-3), we are able to fill the gap the absence of comparable data leaves. In the ESS-3, depression is measured with an eight-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale. In the current study, we examine depression among men and women aged 18-75 in 23 European countries. Our results indicate that women report higher levels of depression than men do in all countries, but there is significant cross-national variation in this gender gap. Gender differences in depression are largest in some of the Eastern and Southern European countries and smallest in Ireland, Slovakia and some Nordic countries. Hierarchical linear models show that socioeconomic as well as family-related factors moderate the relationship between gender and depression. Lower risk of depression is associated in both genders with marriage and cohabiting with a partner as well as with having a generally good socioeconomic position. In a majority of countries, socioeconomic factors have the strongest association with depression in both men and women. This research contributes new findings, expanding the small existing body of literature that presents highly comparable data on the prevalence of depression in women and men in Europe. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Excess mortality in depression: a meta-analysis of community studies.

Pim Cuijpers, Filip Smit (2002)

Although most studies examining the relationship between depression and mortality indicate that there is excess mortality in depressed subjects, this is not confirmed in all studies. Furthermore, it has been hypothesized that mortality rates in depressed men are higher than in depressed women. Finally, it is not clear if the increased mortality rates exist only in major depression or also in subclinical depression. A meta-analysis was conducted to examine these questions. A total of 25 studies with 106,628 subjects, of whom 6416 were depressed, were examined. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted. The overall relative risk (RR) of dying in depressed subjects was 1.81 (95% CI: 1.58-2.07) compared to non-depressed subjects. No major differences were found between men and women, although the RR was somewhat larger in men. The RR in subclinical depression was no smaller than the RR in clinical depression. Only RRs of mortality were examined, which were not corrected for important confounding variables, such as chronic illnesses, or life-style. In the selected studies important differences existed between study characteristics and populations. The number of comparisons was relatively small. There is an increased risk of mortality in depression. An important finding of this study is that the increased risk not only exists in major depression, but also in subclinical forms of depression. In many cases, depression should be considered as a life-threatening disorder.

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Author and article information

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Yanxia Lu: A0068932@u.nus.edu

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Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Rep

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Rep

Title: Scientific Reports

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 2045-2322

Publication date (Electronic): 12 February 2018

Publication date PMC-release: 12 February 2018

Publication date Collection: 2018

Volume: 8

Electronic Location Identifier: 2861

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7857, GRID grid.1002.3, Monash University, ; Melbourne, Australia

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2180 6431, GRID grid.4280.e, Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, , National University of Singapore, ; Singapore, Singapore

[3 ]ISNI 0000 0000 8744 8924, GRID grid.268505.c, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry/School of Public Health, , Zhejiang University College of Medicine, ; Hangzhou, China

[4 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0621 9599, GRID grid.412106.0, Department of Psychological Medicine, , National University Hospital, ; Singapore, Singapore

[5 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0469 9592, GRID grid.414752.1, National Addiction Management Service, , Institute of Mental Health, ; Singapore, Singapore

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Wilson W. Tam http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0641-3060

Article

Publisher ID: 21243

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-21243-x

PMC ID: 5809481

PubMed ID: 29434331

SO-VID: 666b2c9b-a8f4-40f7-a18f-82d49452cd00

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Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Date received : 21 March 2017

Date accepted : 1 February 2018

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Prevalence of Depression in the Community from 30 Countries between 1994 and 2014

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Most cited references 47

Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in the United States. Results from the National Comorbidity Survey.

Gender differences in depression in 23 European countries. Cross-national variation in the gender gap in depression.

Excess mortality in depression: a meta-analysis of community studies.

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