The latest survey figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics show that one in six people report moderate to severe symptoms of depression, representing a 60% increase from the previous three years. According to a report by the British "Daily Mail," this huge rise has been attributed to the increasing mental pressures resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns and the subsequent cost of living crisis. However, psychologists in Finland speculate that there may be another reason for the rising depression rates: that depression could be contagious, much like colds or the flu.
In an article published in the prestigious "JAMA Psychiatry" journal, a team of Finnish scientists led by Kristian Hakulinen, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Helsinki, tracked the health records of over 700,000 children for 11 years, starting from the age of 16. The analytical study revealed that if one student in a classroom showed clear signs of depression, there was at least a 9% higher chance that their classmates would also become affected. Those with more than one depressed or anxious classmate faced an increased risk of at least 18% of being diagnosed with the same condition during the 11-year study.
Even when adjustments were made for factors that could have an impact, such as income level, the correlation between a depressed student and increased depression among their classmates remained. Furthermore, while the strength of the effect decreased over time, it persisted for up to 11 years after the students left school.
Previous scientific studies have also suggested that depression might be contagious. For example, a 2014 American study published in the journal "Clinical Psychological Science" found that depressive thinking could spread among college roommates. Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana conducted a study on 108 randomly selected freshmen who shared rooms in a dormitory. The students answered online survey questions about their thought patterns, exposure to stress, and mood during the first month, and then again after three and six months. The researchers specifically examined a type of thinking related to depression called rumination, which involves overthinking situations.
