Singapore launches five-year study on depression
The study will track around 3,200 Singapore residents, aged between 18 and 75, as they go about their lives to see how symptoms of depression and the severity evolve over time.
Singapore’s Institute of Mental Health (IMH) has initiated a five-year study to look at the causes of depression among adults in the country, with the aim of finding ways to prevent it or halt its trajectory.
The study will track around 3,200 Singapore residents, aged between 18 and 75, as they go about their lives to see how symptoms of depression and the severity evolve over time. It will include 1,229 individuals who have been diagnosed with depression, and a control group of the same number who do not have the condition.
Another 743 participants will have subsyndromal depression – a milder form of depression that does not meet the criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD). This milder form often goes undiagnosed and untreated, which increases the risk of progressing to full-blown depression.
This is the first nationwide longitudinal study to track the development and trajectory of MDD – commonly known as depression – among the local population.
Accordingly, researchers will study how diverse life events and factors influence the development and progression of depression.
These include risk and protective factors such as age, gender, self-esteem, resilience, emotional regulation and lifestyles, as well as social factors such as one’s relationship with family and friends.
MDD is the most prevalent mental disorder in Singapore, as surveys have shown. About 6.3% in the country has had the condition at some point in his or her lifetime, according to the most recent nationwide data available, which is from the 2016 Singapore Mental Health Study.
