Neuroticism, social network, stressful life events: Association with mood disorders, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation in a community sample of women

According to the stress-diathesis hypothesis, depression and suicidal behavior may be precipitated by psychosocial stressors in vulnerable individuals. However, risk factors for mental health are often gender-specific. In the present study, we evaluated common risk factors for female depression in association with depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation in a community sample of women. The sample was composed by 415 women evaluated for mood disorders (MDs), depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation by structured interviews and the Beck depression inventory II (BDI II). All women also filled in the Eysenck personality questionnaire to evaluate neuroticism and were interviewed for social contact frequency and stressful life events (SLEs). In the whole sample, 19% of the women satisfied criteria for MD and suicidal ideation was reported by 12% of the women. Though stressful life events, especially personal and interpersonal problems, and poor social network were associated with all the outcome variables (mood disorder, depressive symptomatology and suicidal ideation), neuroticism survived to all multivariate analyses. Social network, together with neuroticism, also showed strong association with depressive severity, independently from current depressive state. Though we were unable to compare women and men, data obtained from the present study suggest that in women neurotic traits are strongly related to depression and suicidal ideation, and potentially mediate reporting of stressful life events and impaired social network. Independently from a current diagnosis of depression, impaired social network increases depressive symptoms in the women.