Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Faculty of Medicine, Eastern Health Clinical School, Monash Addiction Research Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2023 Sep;57(9):1243-1252. doi: 10.1177/00048674221151000. Epub 2023 Jan 30.
Mental health disorders are ranked globally as the single largest contributor to non-fatal ill-health. Social support can be a means of reducing and managing depression. However, depression can also impact on a person's level of social support.
As men typically have fewer sources of social support than females, this study investigated the bi-directional associations between depressive symptoms and perceived levels of social support among Australian males, aged 18-63.
Three waves of panel data from : The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health collected over 7 years (2013-2020) were used. A random intercept cross-lagged panel analysis with 5112 participants was undertaken. Mediating effects and indirect and total effects for lagged and cross-lagged pathways were also examined.
Over time, greater social support was found to be associated with lower depression levels, and simultaneously greater levels of depression was found to be associated with lower levels of social support. Standardised cross-lagged effects between waves were mostly similar (β = 0.10). However, mediation analyses identified that only the total effect size of the association for depression at wave 1 predicting social support at wave 3 (β = -0.29) was significant. Mediated effects of social support at wave 1 predicting depression at wave 3 were not significant.
These include the number of years between each wave, and data were collected during the COVID pandemic.
The study provides robust longitudinal evidence supporting the notion that social support and depression are both a cause and consequence of the other. However, the long-term effects of depression reducing social support were longer lasting than the effects of social support reducing depression.
精神健康障碍在全球范围内被列为导致非致命性身体不适的最大单一因素。社会支持可以作为减轻和管理抑郁的一种方式。然而，抑郁也会影响一个人的社会支持水平。
由于男性通常比女性拥有更少的社会支持来源，因此本研究调查了澳大利亚 18-63 岁男性的抑郁症状与感知社会支持水平之间的双向关联。
使用了澳大利亚男性健康纵向研究（The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health）在 7 年（2013-2020 年）期间收集的三波面板数据。对 5112 名参与者进行了随机截距交叉滞后面板分析。还检查了滞后和交叉滞后路径的中介效应以及间接和总效应。
随着时间的推移，发现更高的社会支持与更低的抑郁水平相关，同时更高的抑郁水平与更低的社会支持水平相关。各波之间的标准化交叉滞后效应大多相似（β=0.10）。然而，中介分析确定只有抑郁在第 1 波预测第 3 波社会支持的关联的总效应大小（β=-0.29）是显著的。社会支持在第 1 波预测第 3 波抑郁的中介效应不显著。
包括每一波之间的年份数量以及数据是在 COVID 大流行期间收集的。
该研究提供了强有力的纵向证据，支持社会支持和抑郁既是彼此的原因也是彼此的结果的观点。然而，抑郁降低社会支持的长期影响比社会支持降低抑郁的影响更为持久。
