Major depressive episodes and mortality in the Canadian household population

MDE is associated with elevated mortality. The elevated risk is partially attributable to psychosocial, behavioral and health-related determinants. Since MDE itself may have caused changes to these variables, these estimates cannot fully quantify the independent contribution of MDE to mortality. However, these results suggest that clinical and public health efforts to counteract the effect of MDE on mortality may benefit from attention to a broad set of mortality risk factors e.g. smoking, physical activity, management of medical conditions.