Depression in inner London

Summary

This paper reports the incidence of affective disorders in Camberwell based on 18 years of data from the Camberwell Psychiatric Case Register. Values are broken down by sex, age, social class, marital status and country of birth. The mean incidence of all affective disorders in this period was 148.0 per 10⁵ for men and 274.4 per 10⁵ for women. It was hypothesised that moderate depressions would vary more by demographic category than would severe depression and mania. The most striking findings were the preponderance of non bipolar disorders in women; the considerable reduction of incidence of moderate depression with age contrasting with a gradual increase in severe depressions; extremely high rates of all categories of affective disorder in the post marital, particularly in the young; appreciably increased rates in young married women; and the relatively minor differences between social classes and those born in Britain, the West Indies and Ireland. It is suggested that the different age patterns of moderate and severe depressions reflect a difference in the conditions and that a biological effect of ageing may release the propensity to severe depression. Social factors (such as the break-up of a marriage, for whatever reason) associated with major psychosocial stress affect the incidence of both severe and moderate disorders and appear to be capable of overriding the tendency for severe disorders to increase with age. These findings raise important questions that must be addressed though more specific studies.