Single people could be approximately 80% more likely to present depressive symptoms than those who live with a partner, according to an analysis carried out on more than 100,000 individuals in seven countries, published in ‘Nature Human Behavior’.
Research also shows that the risk of depression for single people is also higher in men and those with a higher educational level.
These findings may help identify demographic groups at highest risk of depression.
Depression represents a significant public health challenge globally, and marital status has been identified as a possible risk factor. However, previous research on this association has focused primarily on Western samples, with considerable heterogeneity in results.
The objective of the study was to analyze the association between marital status and depressive symptoms in countries with diverse cultural contexts, using a large-scale, two-stage, multi-country analysis.
The team led by Kefeng Li of Harvard University (USA) analyzed nationally representative and anonymous data at the individual level from seven countries, including USA, UK, Mexico, Ireland, Korea, China and Indonesia (with 106,556 participants in cross-sectional analyzes and 20,865 in longitudinal analyses), representing approximately 541 million adults.
The duration of follow-up ranged from 4 to 18 years.
Although some previous research has suggested that marriage may reduce the risk of depression, these studies often focus on a single (usually Western) country.
Furthermore, the results of this work have varied by country, and little is known about the interaction between marital status and other factors, including variations in socioeconomic status, age, and education.
Worse in the west
The results found that being single is associated with a 79% higher risk of presenting depressive symptoms compared to married people.
The report shows that divorced or separated people had a 99% higher risk of depressive symptoms, while widowed people had a 64% higher risk compared to married people.
Those people who did not live as a couple from Western countries (including USA, UK and Ireland) showed a higher risk of depression than their counterparts in Eastern countries (such as South Korea, China and Indonesia).
This risk was higher among unmarried men compared to unmarried women and among those with a higher educational level compared to those with a lower educational level.
As for possible causes, researchers suggest that lower rates of depression among married people could be due to the exchange of social support within the couple, better access to economic resources, and mutual positive influences on well-being.
However, the authors note that a limitation of the study is that the data was collected through self-report questionnaires and not from clinical diagnoses of depression, and that all couples analyzed in this study were heterosexual.
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