Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This study reviewed systematic reviews to measure death risks in major mental disorders. The authors screened 407 reviews and found 20 that reported mortality risks for 20 different disorders, covering over 1.7 million patients and more than a quarter of a million deaths. Every disorder showed higher all-cause death rates…
A U.S. study reported that depression became more common between 2005 and 2015. The rise was faster for young people than for older adults. The study also found growing gaps in depression rates for vulnerable groups. The authors say we do not yet know a single cause and that more…
This article proposes a new hypothesis: women report mild-to-moderate depression more often, while men report more severe depression and more suicide. The authors point to possible reasons such as hormone links, men’s tendency to hide feelings or avoid help, and different symptom patterns in men. They say this could mean…
Treatments for depression have gotten better and far more people can get them since the 1980s. Yet the share of people in the general population with depression has not gone down. The authors call this the “treatment-prevalence paradox” and review seven possible explanations. They find little evidence that more cases…
This essay argues that depression symptoms lie on a continuum from wellness to distress to disorder. The author proposes a staged model so people with different levels of symptoms can get different kinds of help. He reviews evidence that most people who meet a binary diagnosis have mild or moderate…
This study reports that both full panic disorder (PD) and milder, “subthreshold” panic are linked with other mental health problems, trouble at work, and high use of health services. The authors used data from a large U.S. household survey to compare people with PD and varying levels of panic symptoms.…
This study randomly assigned 79 people with rheumatoid arthritis to either a 9-month Internal Family Systems (IFS) group therapy or to an education-only control. After treatment, the IFS group showed gains in overall pain and physical function, and one year later they still showed small improvements in self-reported joint pain,…
Depressive symptoms imply a loss of quality of life, leading to increased morbidity and mortality as well as increased costs to the healthcare system. Information on the prevalence and distribution of depressive symptoms in the population is essential in light of planning prevention and care. GEDA 2014/2015-EHIS surveyed current depressive…
Researchers say depression is more complex than the old idea of a single “chemical imbalance.” Tests and checklists used to find depression were often made decades ago and miss many symptoms and cultural differences. For example, about 21 million U.S. adults (8.4%) had a major depressive episode in 2020, but…
This study surveyed 607 caregivers of people with mental disorders in Changsha, China, using short stories (vignettes) about schizophrenia, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Caregivers usually expected positive outcomes, but many still held stigmatizing views and wanted social distance, especially for schizophrenia. The authors say more work is needed…
This study looked at 598 men in three groups: men diagnosed with depression, men with physical illnesses, and healthy men. The researchers used several questionnaires to find which factors were linked with the level of depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior in each group. They reported different sets of factors for…
This mixed-methods study used NHS electronic health records and interviews to look at people with major depressive disorder in one large UK trust. Using a common definition of treatment-resistant depression (failure to respond to at least two antidepressant trials), the researchers found TRD was common (48% of the sample) and…
