Earlier this week, a new study of depression across 18 countries was released. Medicalxpress.com summarized some of the findings in an article entitled Global Depression Statistics. In it, the author cites some of the findings:
[Incidents of major depression] were elevated in high-income countries and were especially high in France, the Netherlands, and America….and, while the amount of difficulty a person had with aspects of their life increased with depression and how recent their last attack was, it was more apparent in people from high income countries.
So, consistent with other recent studies, having money (as in the high-income countries) does not equate with happiness. And it seems that our culture – and perhaps specifically our relationship with money – has led us to be less resilient in the face of hard circumstances.
Some aspects were cross cultural – women were twice as likely to suffer depression as men and the loss of a partner, whether from death, divorce or separation, was a main contributing factor.
And, again, consistent with other research, across cultures women are more susceptible to depression than men. However, in the United States, depression in men is typically under reported, probably due to viewing depression as weakness as well as a lack of understanding depression among men in our culture. The study does not address misdiagnosis or under reporting of depression among cultures.
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