1. The relationship between neuroticism, major depressive disorder and comorbid disorders in Chinese women
- Author
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Jing Xia, Qiang He, Yihan Li, Dong Xie, Suoyu Zhu, Jing Chen, Yuan Shen, Ning Zhang, Yan Wei, Chunfeng Chen, Jianhua Shen, Yan Zhang, Chengge Gao, Youhui Li, Jihong Ding, Wenwu Shen, Qian Wang, Meiyue Cao, Tiebang Liu, Jinbei Zhang, Huijun Duan, Cheng Bao, Ping Ma, Cong Zhou, Yanfang Luo, Fengzhi Zhang, Ying Liu, Yi Li, Guixing Jin, Yutang Zhang, Wei Liang, Yunchun Chen, Changyin Zhao, Haiyan Li, Yiping Chen, Shenxun Shi, Kenneth S. Kendler, Jonathan Flint, and Xumei Wang
- Subjects
Research Report ,Adult ,medicine.medical_specialty ,China ,Neurotic Disorders ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Major depressive disorder ,Comorbidity ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Risk Factors ,Melancholia ,mental disorders ,medicine ,Personality ,Humans ,Risk factor ,Psychiatry ,media_common ,Neuroticism ,Depressive Disorder, Major ,Odds ratio ,Middle Aged ,medicine.disease ,Anxiety Disorders ,030227 psychiatry ,3. Good health ,Community-Acquired Infections ,Clinical Psychology ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Anxiety ,Female ,medicine.symptom ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Clinical psychology - Abstract
Objective The personality trait of neuroticism is a risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD), but this relationship has not been demonstrated in clinical samples from Asia. Methods We examined a large-scale clinical study of Chinese Han women with recurrent major depression and community-acquired controls. Results Elevated levels of neuroticism increased the risk for lifetime MDD (with an odds ratio of 1.37 per SD), contributed to the comorbidity of MDD with anxiety disorders, and predicted the onset and severity of MDD. Our findings largely replicate those obtained in clinical populations in Europe and US but differ in two ways: we did not find a relationship between melancholia and neuroticism; we found lower mean scores for neuroticism (3.6 in our community control sample). Limitations Our findings do not apply to MDD in community-acquired samples and may be limited to Han Chinese women. It is not possible to determine whether the association between neuroticism and MDD reflects a causal relationship. Conclusions Neuroticism acts as a risk factor for MDD in Chinese women, as it does in the West and may particularly predispose to comorbidity with anxiety disorders. Cultural factors may have an important effect on its measurement.
- Published
- 2011