Humans are social creatures and are reliant on others for a multitude of factors. These reasons could be for monetary support, shelter, safety, love, and mental health overall. Perceived social support has large implications in many aspects of an individual’s identity, especially in terms of susceptibility to mental illnesses such as depression.
Dr. Olu Ajilore clearly identifies these concepts in the research article “Reconsidering remission in recurrent late-life depression: clinical presentation and phenotypic predictors of relapse following successful antidepressant treatment”. This study focused on individuals suffering from late life depression, as well as various factors that may influence relapse. They found that 44% of participants who were in remission relapsed. The predictors of relapse in participants were found to be depressive symptom severity, greater life stress, amount of medication and most importantly: level of social support in their life. These research findings indicate that social interactions are a crucial aspect of recovery in those suffering from depression, and have implications for the necessity of social groups throughout someone’s lifetime. For example, being involved in support groups such as therapy could drastically decrease the levels of relapse of those suffering from late life depression.
However, not everyone has the choice to take part in social interactions. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic the world was forced to lock down in their homes or stay 6 feet apart from other people while in public. Besides these strict procedures, the public was in many cases scared to interact with others because of this deadly disease, so social interactions were kept to a minimum. The research article “Social relationships and depression during the COVID-19 lockdown: longitudinal analysis of the COVID-19 Social Study” by Sommerlad et al. exemplifies these ideas through studying the consequences of reduced social contact and support during 2020.
Researchers found that out of over 70,000 participants, those with higher quality of social contact had fewer depressive symptoms compared to those with no contact. Furthermore, individuals who were typically more sociable and had higher levels of empathy, but had less social contact, had more depressive symptoms overall. These results further indicate that social contact is a crucial aspect to mental illnesses such as depression.
Overall, both of these research articles highlight the importance of social support in relation to depression. The amount of social interaction was imperative to the rate of relapse in individuals suffering from depression, as well as depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings indicate that the quality of social interactions are a central component to mental illness susceptibility, and imply that social groups, especially in the times of lockdown during a global pandemic, could prove to reduce the amount of depressive symptoms in the population. These research articles reflect the importance of environmental factors and social cues that shape mental health outcomes, and could lead to lower levels of depression in society if more social groups are added to an individual’s life. These additions to society could also potentially reduce the amount of medicated patients, which also have associations with higher levels of relapse and addiction in those with late life depression.
References
Sommerlad, A., Marston, L., Huntley, J., Livingston, G., Lewis, G., Steptoe, A., & Fancourt, D. (2021). Social relationships and depression during the COVID-19 lockdown: Longitudinal analysis of the COVID-19 Social Study. Psychological Medicine, 53(2), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720004091
Taylor, W. D., Butters, M. A., Elson, D., Szymkowicz, S. M., Jennette, K., Baker, K., Renfro, B., Georgaras, A., Krafty, R., Andreescu, C., & Ajilore, O. (2023). Reconsidering remission in recurrent late-life depression: Clinical presentation and phenotypic predictors of relapse following successful antidepressant treatment. Psychological Medicine, 53(10), 4313–4322. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291722002185
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