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Depression: Distress or Disease? Some Epidemiological Considerations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

George W. Brown ,
Tom K. J. Craig  and
Tirril O. Harris
George W. Brown*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, (University of London), 11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RA
Tom K. J. Craig
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, (University of London), 11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RA
Tirril O. Harris
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, (University of London), 11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RA
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

Surveys using clinical-type interviews have documented a high rate of depression among working-class women, and this is discussed in the light of a recent survey in an inner-city area. While women with caseness of depression contacting a psychiatrist did not differ in number of core depressive symptoms from those who did, they did in certain characteristics that would make them worrying for a general practitioner to deal with. It is concluded that there is a considerable overlap in the severity of depressive conditions between those seen by psychiatrists and those defined as cases in population surveys; any differences that do exist may relate more to the way symptoms are expressed than to the severity of the depressive disorder as such.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 147 , Issue 6 , December 1985 , pp. 612 - 622
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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