Circadian Preferences and Coping Styles for Stressful Life Events in Major Depressive Disorder

INTRODUCTION: Depressive disorder is a common public health problem that significantly impairs quality of life and has a high risk of mortality and morbidity. The aim of this study was to investigate circadian rhythm differences, stressful life events and coping styles in patients with depression.
METHODS: The study involved 100 participants, including 50 patients with depression and 50 healthy controls, recruited from the psychiatric clinic of one-university hospital. The participants completed a sociodemographic information form, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Life Events Checklist (LEC-5), Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations-Short Form (CISS-21) and Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ).
RESULTS: The mean age of the patients with depression was 31.88±10.6 years, and the control group was 29.84±8.02 years. Emotional coping was significantly higher in patients with depression compared to the control group, whereas task-oriented coping was significantly lower than the control group (p<0.05). The majority of both depression and the control group consisted of intermediate type. Natural disasters, severe suffering, and other stressful events or experiences were more frequent stressful life events in the depression group. Task-oriented coping scores and emotional coping scores showed significant discrimination with sensitivity and specificity values.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Recognizing stressful life events and the coping strategies used to deal with them is important for identifying major depression and developing treatment and follow-up plans. Longitudinal studies are needed to fully understand how coping methods interacts with depression in recovery from traumatic events.