Biomedical subjects

A Bifulco

Publications and source records attributed to A Bifulco.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed1990

Self-esteem and depression. III. Aetiological issues.

This is the last of a series of three papers dealing with the role of self-esteem in the onset of clinical depression. On the basis of a longitudinal population enquiry a comprehensive psychosocial model of depression is developed. It is concluded that self-esteem (primarily in terms of a negative measure) does play a significant role. However, this can be only properly interpreted in the light of the full model. This highlights: 1. the importance of the occurrence of both a negative environmental factor (negative interaction with children or husband for married or negative interaction with children or lack of a very close tie for single mothers) and a negative psychological factor (low self-esteem or chronic subclinical condition); and 2. how a relatively small group of high risk women in these terms (23% of total at risk based on measures collected well before any onset) contain three-quarters of all instances of onset of depression occurring over a 12 month period.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Self-esteem and depression. IV. Effect on course and recovery.

The present paper, the fourth and last in a series examining the role of self-esteem in depressive disorder in the general population, deals with recovery/improvement from a disorder at a case level. Both positive evaluation of self (PES) and absence of negative evaluation of self (NES) measured during a chronic episode are related to subsequent recovery or improvement. A causal effect is suggested since the measure adds over and above to that of environmental factors previously established to relate to recovery/improvement--the reduction of an ongoing difficulty or fresh-start event. Positive evaluation of self was also related to recovery/improvement from subsequent onsets of case depression. In this instance, unlike that for the chronic conditions, self-esteem was measured outside the episode of depression. A causal effect was also suggested because it made an independent contribution vis-a-vis the effect of fresh-start events. Given the small size of the sample the study should be seen as an exploratory one.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Motherhood, employment and the development of depression. A replication of a finding?

A prospective inquiry of a largely working-class sample of women with children considers the effect of employment on risk of developing clinical depression. The hypothesis was that there would be a direct protective effect arising from employment once quality of other support was taken into account. In fact full-time working mothers were at high risk. This appeared to be explained by either prior work strain or a severe event involving 'deviant' behaviour on the part of husband/boyfriend or child. Neither factor was relevant for part-time workers. The severe events appeared to be particularly depressogenic for full-time workers because they represented either failure in the motherhood role or a sense of entrapment in an unrewarding work/domestic situation. However, those in part-time work had a low rate of onset compared with non-workers, and the difference appears to be related to non-working women feeling less secure about their marriages.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1988

Life events, difficulties and recovery from chronic depression.

Reductions in an overall score of ongoing difficulties and the occurrence of a 'fresh start' event often preceded the recovery or improvement of women in a general-population survey suffering from chronic depression, i.e. with episodes lasting 12 months or more. In addition, overall levels of difficulties and presence of social support were independently related to recovery or improvement. Some of the life-changes preceding recovery were threatening, but all promised some hope of a better future. Evidence is presented that the results as a whole are unlikely to be due to incipient changes in clinical condition leading the women to make changes in their environment, but some bias of this kind cannot be entirely ruled out.

Depressive Disorder↗

PubMed1987

Loss of parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: the role of social class position and premarital pregnancy.

This paper addresses the critique which maintains that loss of parent in a sample of female adults plays no role in determining current depression over and above that of low social class position with which such loss is associated. It examines a series of variables which combine to determine current social class position and which seem to stem from lack of adequate replacement care following loss of mother. The experience of a premarital pregnancy and the way in which women cope with it emerge as critical in this process. The relationship of low social class to the onset of depression is discussed in the light of better-known vulnerability factors such as low confiding in, and undependability of, marital partner, employment outside the home and number of children. It is concluded that a current low social class position, far from explaining away the association between loss of mother and current depression, may itself be brought about by a chain of circumstances stemming from the loss. Once again, the quality of replacement care is shown to play a critical role.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1987

Life events, vulnerability and onset of depression: some refinements.

A prospective study of 400 largely working-class women with children living at home has once again demonstrated the major importance of long-term severe threatening life events in provoking caseness of depression. However, it again shows that only about one out of five women experiencing such an event go on to develop depression at a case level. This paper demonstrates that more sensitive characterisation of severe events can greatly increase the size of this association. This is done both by improving the description of the event itself and by taking into account various ways in which the event can 'match' characteristics of the women present at the first interview, well before the occurrence of the event or any onset of depression.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1986

Loss of parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: the role of lack of adequate parental care.

The inconclusiveness of the literature on the role of loss of parent in influencing psychiatric disorder in adulthood is well known. A number of reasons involving sampling, location and other methodological features, are given to account for these contradictory findings. A study specially designed to cope with these features is then described and basic results are reported. These indicate that, in a sample of women aged 18-65, loss of mother before the age of 17, either by death or by separation of one year or more, was associated with clinical depression in the year of interview. Loss of father by death was in no way associated with current depression, but separation from father showed a trend which, however, did not reach statistical significance. Control for other possible confounding factors did not change this patterning of results; these were further supported when psychiatric episodes earlier in adulthood were examined. Examination of the caregiving arrangements in childhood suggests that it is 'lack of care', defined in terms of neglect rather than simply hostile parental behaviour, which accounts for the raised rate of depression. Such 'lack of care' is more frequent after loss of mother than after loss of father.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Life stress, chronic subclinical symptoms and vulnerability to clinical depression.

Prospective enquiries of the role of social factors in the aetiology of depression are faced with the problem of who to exclude from the enquiry in terms of psychiatric symptomatology present at first contact. With this problem in mind the role of subclinical symptoms among women not cases of depression has been examined in terms of their relation with a subsequent onset of caseness depression. Psychosocial factors of particular importance in the development of such depression were low self-esteem, marked long-term difficulties and severe life events arising out of (or 'matching') these difficulties. These psychosocial factors were also correlated with the presence of subclinical symptoms. It is concluded that although subclinical symptoms relate to a raised risk of subsequent depression at a caseness level there is no evidence that there is inherent vulnerability stemming from such subclinical symptoms over and above that explained by the psychosocial correlates.

Adjustment Disorders↗