According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is a mental disorder that affects approximately 5% of adults worldwide. It is a multifactorial health problem that, in the worst case, can lead to suicide. Science is working to understand the risk factors that drive depression in the population. Of all the possible ones, marital status is one of the ones that most intrigues researchers.
Marital status is a potential risk factor for depression recognized by medicine. Single people are up to 80% more likely to develop depressive symptoms, according to recent research from the Macau Polytechnic University in China. Their study on the association between depression and marital status is one of the first to sample both Western and Eastern cultures. The results have been published in the journal Nature Human Behavior.
Despite the high figure, the researchers have clarified that there is no direct causal relationship between both scenarios. In other words, it is not possible to say that a person is depressed because they are single, or that they do not have a partner because they have symptoms of depression.
Why do single people get more depressed?
In the absence of more data on the disorder, it is risky to offer an explanation as to why single people are more likely to become depressed. Still, science has multiple cultural and physiological factors that interconnect to elevate risk. These include the consumption of substances such as tobacco or alcohol, the person’s culture and the absence of solid support networks.
The China team studied a database of 100,000 participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, China, Korea and Indonesia. Taken together, the sample may represent about 541 million adults around the world. Multicultural approach is important, scientists say. Similar studies generally only take Western populations into account.
The scientists also followed the records of its population for a period that ranged from four to 18 years. Those participants who were divorced, widowed or single more frequently showed signs of depression. They also found similarities in behavior between singles from different cultures. For example, those from Mexico and China tended to smoke more.
Variables that are repeated
Although there is no certainty about the correlation, previous reports have found variables that significantly influence the risk of depressive symptoms in single people. Sleep time, pain experienced day to day, and perception of satisfaction with life were determinants in increasing risk, according to similar research from 2022.
“Depressive symptoms may be directly related to marital status, or indirectly related through mediators such as sleep time, pain, and life satisfaction. Specifically, people who are separated, divorced, widowed, or never married were more likely to sleep less, feel pain, and be dissatisfied with life, which increased their risk of depression,” the report explains.
In any case, actions to treat depression should not be limited to direct medication towards the receptor neurons for substances such as serotonin or dopamine. Mitigating the risks of depression should consider the roles of the person’s cultural context, sex, educational level, substance abuse and marital status, the research proposes.
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