Australian depression rates not rising

The popular belief that rates of depression are climbing among Australians has been challenged by new research. 

A study by the University of Melbourne has found there was no significant increase in the number of people being diagnosed with major depression over the five years to 2004. 

The number of people with less severe mood disorders actually decreased over the period, according to research published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 

“This seriously challenges the widely held belief that more and more Australians are getting depression,” said lead author, Professor Graeme Hawthorne.

“We have found that does not appear to be the case.”

The findings are based on interviews with 3,000 South Australians done in 1998 and 2004. 

The slight increase in major depression detected, from 6.8% – 8%, was not statistically significant.  However, there was a significant drop in minor depression, from 10.6% – 8.4%.

Professor Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute in Sydney, said he believed increasing diagnosis was due to a broadening of the definition of depression and de-stigmatisation of the condition. 

“I’ve never subscribed to the view that there has been a true increase in incidence of depression,” Professor Parker said. 

“We have just had people talking about it more, as well as more people fitting the diagnosis under a new wider definition that was established in the 1980s.” 

He said he was concerned the current criteria medicalised the common human condition of sadness by mis-diagnosing it as something more serious.