New study has surprise findings on childhood depression

A child’s social environment may have only a modest effect on whether very young children become depressed, according to new Australian research.

“Our study found that even dysfunctional family relationships and poor communication styles have a limited impact on the observed mental health of a child,” Professor Jake Najman said. “This was contrary to our expectations.”

Although they then go on to say this suggests that environmental and social factors play a lesser role in a child’s depressive development than do biological factors, their study didn’t actually examine or show this. What you can say is that depression is a complicated disorder and a single, strong causative factor is not likely in most people. Third, external factors not measured or examined by this study, such as a person’s resilience could also explain this study’s findings.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 1 Jun 2005
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