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Life events and depressiveness – the effect of adjustment for psychosocial factors, somatic health and genetic liability
Author(s) -
Romanov K.,
Varjonen J.,
Kaprio J.,
Koskenvuo M.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0447.2003.01419.x
Subject(s) - psychology , psychosocial , social support , clinical psychology , personality , dizygotic twin , depression (economics) , beck depression inventory , developmental psychology , demography , psychiatry , twin study , anxiety , social psychology , sociology , macroeconomics , heritability , biology , economics , genetics
Objective: To study the nature of the relationship of life events with depressiveness. Method: In 1990, 9947 Finnish adult twins aged 33–60 years participated in a questionnaire study, with no missing data on the analysed variables. The relationship between stressful life‐events and depressiveness, based on Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) classified as normal, mild or moderate, was analysed using multinomial regression for all subjects with adjustment for the effect of age, sex, health status, social support, marital status, social class, and personality variables. These same factors were analyzed among 643 twin pairs discordant for depressiveness. Results: High BDI score categories were strongly associated with stressful life events in all individuals and equally strongly within discordant twin pairs, both monozygotic and dizygotic. Poor somatic health and lack of social support also increased depressiveness. Conclusion: The effect of life events predicting depressiveness was independent of social support, somatic disease, sex and genetic liability.