Study Reveals the Importance of Social Support in Buffering Genetic Risk of Depression
The power of social support in protecting against depression
Reaching out to support a person when they're under stress is always a good idea. But a new study suggests that support could be especially important for someone whose genetic makeup makes them more likely to develop depression.
The study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry by a University of Michigan team, shows the importance of social support in buffering the risk of developing depression symptoms in general, using data from two very different groups of people under stress: new doctors in the most intense year of training, and older adults whose spouses recently died. But the largest effect was seen in those who had the most genetic variation that raised the risk of depression.
The paper uses a measure of genetic risk called a polygenic risk score, which is based on decades of research about what tiny variations in specific genes are linked to depression risk.
Compared to individuals in the study who had low depression polygenic risk scores, the doctors and widows with higher risk scores had higher rates of depression after they lost social support, but also had lower rates of depression when they gained social support during stressful times.
The new study used data from two long-term studies that both capture genetic, mood, environment and other data from populations of participating individuals. One is the Intern Health Study, which enrolls first-year medical residents (also called interns) around the United States and beyond, and which Sen directs. The other is the Health and Retirement Study, based at the U-M Institute for Social Research and funded by the National Institute on Aging.
The data for the new paper came from 1,011 interns training at hospitals across the country, nearly half of whom were female, and from 435 recently widowed individuals, 71% of them women, who had data available from surveys conducted before and after their spouses died.
In the interns, as Sen and his team have shown in previous work, depressive symptoms increased dramatically (126%) during the stressful year of training that includes long and irregular work hours -- often in environments far from friends and family. In the widows and widowers, depressive symptoms increased 34% over their pre-widowhood scores. This correlates with past research showing loss of a spouse can be one of the biggest stressors in a person's life.
The study suggests that more could be done to target social support to those who can most benefit. Even as genetic research reveals more of the DNA variation related to depression vulnerability, learning how that variation leads to depression is crucial.
Reference
Jennifer L. Cleary, Yu Fang, Laura B. Zahodne, Amy S.B. Bohnert, Margit Burmeister, Srijan Sen. Polygenic Risk and Social Support in Predicting Depression Under Stress. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2023; DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.21111100
Discussion Questions
How does the study's use of polygenic risk scores help to understand the relationship between genetics and depression risk?
How do the findings of the study regarding the impact of social support on depression symptoms differ between the groups of new doctors and widows/widowers?
In what ways can the study's findings be applied to help target social support to those who may benefit the most?
How do the study's findings contribute to our understanding of the role of genetics and environment in depression risk and prevention?
