Single people are 80% more likely to suffer from depression

The study investigated the causes that lead people from seven countries to depression. These also include alcohol and smoking.

“Depression represents a significant challenge to global public health and marital status has been recognized as a potential risk factor”, begin by writing the researchers in the published this week in Nature.

Over a follow-up period of up to 18 years, these researchers found that being single was associated with a 79% higher risk of depressive symptoms compared to married people, explains .

The situation gets worse when it comes to divorced or separated: these have a 99% higher risk of developing depression, while widowers have a 64% higher risk.

“This increased vulnerability emerged especially among single men and those with a high level of education in Western countries“, it is also written in the study. As Lusa writes, singles from the Western countries analyzed (USA, United Kingdom and Ireland) were at greater risk of depression than singles from Eastern countries (South Korea, China and Indonesia).

In certain countries, also alcohol consumption and smoking worsen depressive symptoms in single, widowed or divorced people. THE alcohol is a factor that causes depression especially among widowed, divorced or separated and single individuals in China, Korea and Mexico, and smoking in single Chinese and Mexican participants.

But why can being single be harmful to mental health? The study explains that lower rates of depression among couples may be due to the exchange of support between the couple, to the best of their ability. access to economic resources and to positive influence in each other’s well-being.

But the investigation had limitations, as highlighted in the document, because the data was collected through “self-report” and not clinical diagnoses of depression. Another limiting factor was the fact that all the couples studied were heterosexualand it is unknown whether the estimate holds for other cases.