Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:16:13.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Symptoms of depression in two communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

George W. Comstock*
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Knud J. Helsing
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr George W. Comstock, Training Center for Public Health Research, Box 2067, Hagerstown, MD 21740, USA

Synopsis

Histories of depression-related symptoms were obtained from 3845 randomly selected adult residents of Kansas City, Missouri, and Washington County, Maryland. Depressed persons were slightly more common in Kansas City than in Washington County but within the latter area no urban–rural differences were observed. More depressed persons were found among blacks than among whites. Slightly more white females than males were depressed; no significant differences were found between black females and males. After adjustment for the effects of other independent variables, the probability of having symptoms of depression was highest among persons who were young adults, unmarried, not employed outside the home, poorly paid, and not well educated.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Babigian, H. M., Gardner, E. A., Miles, H. C. & Romano, J. (1965). Diagnostic consistency in a follow-up study of 1215 patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 121, 895901.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T., Ward, C. H., Mendelson, M., Mock, J. & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 4, 561571.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benfari, R. C., Beiser, M., Leighton, H. & Mertens, C. (1972). Some dimensions of psychoneurotic behavior in an urban sample. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 155, 7790.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkman, P. L. (1971). Measurement of mental health in a general population survey. American Journal of Epidemiology 94, 105111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkson, J., Magath, T. B. & Hum, M. (1940). The error of estimate of the blood cell count as made with the hemocytometer. American Journal of Physiology 128, 309323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, B. J., Fielding, J. M. & Blashki, T. G. (1973). Depression rating scales. A critical review. Archives of General Psychiatry 28, 361366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carstairs, G. M. (1963). Standardization of psychiatric judgments. In Epidemiology, Reports on Research and Teaching, 1962 (ed. Pemberton, J.), pp. 261270. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Clausen, J. A. & Kohn, M. L. (1959). Relation of schizophrenia to the social structure of a small city. In Epidemiology of Mental Disorder (ed. Pasamanick, B.), pp. 6994. Publication No. 60, American Association for the Advancement of Science: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Comstock, G. W. & Helsing, K. J. (1973). Characteristics of respondents and nonrespondents to a questionnaire for estimating community mood. American Journal of Epidemiology 97, 233239.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Comstock, G. W., Abbey, H. & Lundin, F. E. Jr (1970). The nonofficial census as a basic tool for epidemiologic observations in Washington County, Maryland. In The Community as an Epidemiologic Laboratory (ed. Kessler, I. I. & Levin, M. L.), pp. 7397. Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore.Google Scholar
Cooper, B. (1966). Psychiatric disorder in hospital and general practice. Social Psychiatry 1, 710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, T. J. & Van Natta, P. (1973). Validation of the Community Mental Health Assessment interview instrument among psychiatric inpatients. Working Paper No. B-27a for Center for Epidemiologic Studies.Google Scholar
Dahlstrom, W. G. & Welsh, G. S. (1960). An MMPI Handbook. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Feldstein, M. S. (1966). A binary variable multiple regression method of analysing factors affecting perinatal mortality and other outcomes of pregnancy. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 129, part 1, pp. 6173.Google Scholar
Gardner, E. A. (1968). Development of a symptom check list for the measurement of depression in a population. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Gurin, G., Veroff, J. & Feld, S. (1960). Americans View Their Mental Health. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Klassen, D. & Roth, A. (1974). Characteristics of nonrespondents in the community mental health assessment survey. Draft paper for Center for Epidemiologic Studies.Google Scholar
Klimt, C. R., Wolff, W., Silverman, C. & Conant, J. (1961). Calibration of a simplified cortisone glucose tolerance test. Diabetes 10, 351366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kramer, M., Pollack, E. S., Redick, R. W. & Locke, B. Z. (1972). Mental Disorders/Suicide. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Kreitman, N. (1961). The reliability of psychiatric diagnosis. Journal of Mental Science 107, 887908.Google Scholar
Leighton, D. C., Harding, J. S., Macklin, D. B., Macmillan, A. M. & Leighton, A. H. (1963). The Character of Danger. Psychiatric Symptoms in Selected Communities. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Lubin, B. (1967). Manual for the Depression Adjective Check List. Educational and Industrial Testing Service: San Diego.Google Scholar
Masuda, M. & Holmes, T. H. (1967). Magnitude estimates of social readjustments. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11, 219225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
National Center for Health Statistics (1970). Selected Symptoms of Psychological Distress. Vital and Health Statistics. PHS publication number 1000, series II, number 37, Public Health Service, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Newell, R. R., Chamberlain, W. E. & Rigler, L. (1954). Descriptive classification of pulmonary shadows, a revelation of unreliability in the roentgenographic diagnosis of tuberculosis. American Review of Tuberculosis 69, 566584.Google ScholarPubMed
Nie, N. H., Hull, G. H., Jenkins, J. G., Steinbrenner, K. & Bent, D. H. (1975). Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Pederson, A. M., Barry, D. K. & Babigian, H. M. (1972). Epidemiologic considerations of psychotic depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 27, 193197.Google Scholar
Radloff, L. (1975). The CES-D scale. Draft paper for Center for Epidemiologic Studies.Google Scholar
Raskin, A., Schulterbrandt, J., Reating, N. & McKeon, J. (1969). Replication of factors of psychopathology in interview, ward behavior and self-report ratings of hospitalized depressives. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 198, 8796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reger, B. B., Butcher, D. F. & Morgan, W. K. C. (1973). Assessing change in the pneumoconioses using serial radiographs. Sources and quantification of bias. American Journal of Epidemiology 98, 243254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwab, J. J., Bialow, M. R., Brown, J. M. & Holzerh, C. E. III (1967). Sociocultural aspects of depression in medical inpatients. II. Symptomatology and class. Archives of General Psychiatry 17, 539543.Google Scholar
Silverman, C. (1968). The Epidemiology of Depression. Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore.Google ScholarPubMed
Srole, L., Langner, T. S., Michael, S.T., Opler, M. K. & Rennie, T. A. C. (1962). Mental Health in the Metropolis: The Midtown Manhattan Study, vol. 1. McGraw-Hill: New York.Google Scholar
Tonks, C. M., Paykel, E. S. & Klerman, C. L. (1970). Clinical depressions among Negroes. American Journal of Psychiatry 127, 329335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Uhlenhuth, E. H., Lipman, R. S., Baiter, M. B. & Stern, M. (1974). Symptom intensity and life stress in the city. Archives of General Psychiatry 31, 759764.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warheit, G. J., Halzer, C. E. III & Schwab, J. J. (1973). An analysis of social class and racial differences in depressive symptomatology: A community study. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 14, 291299.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weissman, M. M. & Locke, B. Z. (1975). Comparison of a self-report symptom rating scale (CES-D) with standardized depression rating scales in psychiatric populations. American Journal of Epidemiology 102, 430431.Google Scholar
Zubin, J. & Fleiss, J. (1971). Current biometric approaches to depression, In Depression in the 70's (ed. Fieve, R. R.), pp. 719. Excerpta Medica, International Congress Series No. 239: Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Zung, W. W. K. (1965). A self-rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry 12, 6370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed