Depressive symptoms and Lifestyle in a community population

Depression plays an important role in the etiology of suicide. There are few effective screening strategy for depression with less dependence on psychological specialists, though a systematic reduction of the incidence of suicide will first require finding potentially depressive persons. We evaluated whether depressive people diagnosed by SDS questionnaire may be detected by lifestyle factors. Five hundred-one people (male/female=247/254, age 32-78 years) were asked validated questions on depression, regular diet, alcohol consumption, current smoking status, regular physical activity, and medical history. Depression was defined based on the total score from the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) and score of ≥40 points was considered to indicate depression. Sixty-three people (male/female=29/34, 12.6%) were defined depression. The multivariate-adjusted OR of depression was 2.70 (95%CI: 1.26-5.82) for "current smoker" and 0.48 (95%CI: 0.26-0.87) for "getting enough sleep". Persons with depression may have more risk behaviors such as smoking, poor diet, or lack of exercise than persons without depression, though it has been argued that the relationship between depression and risky lifestyle is bi-directional or high co-morbidity.