This document provides information about a study on risk factors for depression. The study used a prospective longitudinal design to examine whether lack of social support and low self-esteem increase vulnerability to depression following major life events. 303 women were followed over a year. Results showed that having core social support reduced depression risk, but lack of support during a crisis increased depression risk. Low self-esteem also increased depression risk when a major life event occurred. The study suggests that experiencing a major life event may be necessary for depression to develop, and that social support and self-esteem influence depression outcomes following life stressors.

1. How could we …
… better educated the public about the
issues of mental health?
What would you want to tell them to
help remove the stigma of mental health
disorders?

2. Lesson Objectives
By the end of the lesson you …
• Must be able to describe (AO1) one key issues
in clinical psychology.
• Should be able to prepare a leaflet using
secondary data for a particular audience
about the key issue.

4. • Must be able to describe (AO1) one key
issues in clinical psychology.
• Should be able to prepare a leaflet using
secondary data for a particular audience
about the key issue.

5. Brown 1986
• Write down 5
symptoms of unipolar
depression
• What are two
explanations for
unipolar depression?
• What are two
treatments for unipolar
depression?

6. Lesson Objectives
By the end of the lesson you …
• Should be able to describe (AO1) and evaluate
(AO2) Brown 1986.

7. Specification
• Describe and evaluate Rosenhan (1973)
and two other studies. One other study
must focus on schizophrenia (Gottesman
& Shields) and one other study must focus
on one other chosen disorder (Brown –
unipolar depression).

8. Aims
• To see whether crisis support protects
against the onset of depression
• To see if a lack of support and low selfesteem are vulnerability factors for
depression
• To see if support from someone close
reduces the risk of depression

9. Key Terms
• Core support = support of a husband,
partner or close relation
• Crisis support = professional support at
the time of a major life event

10. Procedure (Design)
• Prospective design
• What does this mean?
• Longitudinal and began when the
participants were not affected by
depression. This allows risk factors to
be studied without depression affecting
their answers.

11. Procedure (Sample)
•
•
•
•
Women
Islington, North London
Aged 18-50
Women with husbands in manual
occupations/single mothers (working
class)
• At least one child living at home
• Letter sent out by GP
• 395 in sample at start

12. Procedure (Phase 1)
• Measures of self-esteem taken
• Psychiatric history noted

13. Procedure (Phase 2)
• One year later
• Data collected about any onset of
psychiatric disorder since first contact
• Measures of life event stress and social
support taken by experienced interviewers
using semi-structured interviews
• Satisfactory inter-rater reliability

14. Attrition Rate
• Only 353 of the original 395 agreed to
phase 2.
• Of these 353, 50 women were excluded
from phase 2 because they were found to
already be depressed.
• This left 303 women whose data was
analysed after phase 2.

15. Results
• Of the 303 women, 150 had experienced a
severe event between phase 1 and phase
2.
• 32 of these women had the onset of
depression.

16. Results
• 29 of the 32 had experienced a major life
event involving a loss, failure or
disappointment six months prior to
developing depression.

17. Results
• Having negative self-esteem had a
significant effect on a woman’s reaction to
the major life events.

18. Results
• Of the 9 women who did not have core
support or crisis support 4 of these
developed depression (44%)

19. Conclusions
• Core support reduced the onset of
depression if it remained consistent
• BUT if core support was not received at
crisis there was an increased risk of
depression
• Low self-esteem is implicated in the
onset of depression when a major life
event is experienced
• A major life event seemed to be
necessary for the development of
depression in most cases

20. Evaluation
• R inter-rater reliability, follow up
study, semi-structured interview
• A treatment of risk factors
• V experienced interviewers, qualitative
and quantitative data, no causality, social
desirability
• E sensitive research, withdrawal
• S random sampling, large sample, all
women, all working class, attrition rate

21. Plenary
• 1. Why did the researchers choose a
prospective design?
• 2. How might the attrition rate have affected
the data collected?
• 3. What do the findings seem to suggest about
a possible explanation for depression?

22. • Should be able to describe (AO1) and
evaluate (AO2) Brown 1986.

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