see also:

• psychiatry and mental health
• antidepressants
• suicide
• Geriatric depression scale
• stress
• happiness
• sadness
• loneliness
• new screening tool for depression in Australian indigenous peoples - the aPHQ-9

• Aust Presc 2008 - Rx of perinatal depression (post-partum)
• Aust Presc 2007 - Antidepressants in pregnancy and breastfeeding

• Dec 2008 - Antidepressants the most common PBS prescription for women aged 28-33yrs in Australia
• happiness appears to reach its lowest in the mid-forties and then steadily rises as one has more free time and less fiscal burdens of raising a family, while at the same time learning to accept what they have.¹⁾
• while life satisfaction, rises with personal and national income, positive feelings, like having fun and enjoyment, are much more strongly associated with other factors, such as feeling respected, being independent, having friends and working at a fulfilling job. ²⁾
• half a million people aged over 60yrs in UK are lonely and spend most of their time alone ³⁾
  • Evidence review: loneliness in later life (pdf)
    • those with strong social connections have a 50% increased likelihood of survival after an average follow up time of 7½ years
    • loneliness is often a self-perpetuating vicious spiral as feeling of disconnection from the world, worthlessness, resentment, vulnerability, social fears, anger and depression leads to poor behaviours of alcohol or drug abuse, sedentary lifestyle, obesity which self-perpetuates aided by development of maladaptive social cognition whereby social encounters come to be viewed with mistrust and increasing cynicism.
• Oct 2021: intense, targeted magnetic brain Rx known as Stanford neuromodulation therapy appears to rapidly induce remission from depression in most patients tested ⁴⁾
• May 2023: Ketamine non-inferior to ECT for Rx of major depression ⁵⁾
• Mar 2025: a study of 57,000 middle aged Australian women showed that those who reported persistently feeling lonely had a 3x rate of death over the 15 year study period compared to those without persistent loneliness⁶⁾

• circadian depression⁷⁾
  • appears to account for nearly a quarter of the diagnoses in the study of people with severe, recurrent or persistent depression
  • often have symptoms such as a seasonal pattern of illness, sleeping longer when depressed, waking up feeling very tired, and being a night owl
  • more likely to experience their depression emerging earlier in life and had more severe symptoms (such as mania and higher levels of suicidal thoughts)
  • had a higher genetic risk for inflammatory and cardiovascular health problems and major neurodevelopmental disorders, including ADHD
  • less responsive to treatment with serotonin-based antidepressants but is more responsive to behavioural and medical therapies targeting the body clock’s unique brain circuits, such as melatonin, melatonin-targeted antidepressants and light therapy