Stressful life events increase the risk of major depressive episodes: A population-based twin study

Previous studies have found that stressful life events (SLEs) are associated with an increased risk of adult depression. However, many studies are observational in nature and limited by methodological issues, such as potential confounding by genetic factors. Genetically informative research, such as the co-twin control design, can strengthen causal inference in observational studies. Discrete-time survival analysis has several benefits and multilevel survival analysis can incorporate frailty terms (random effects) to estimate the components of the biometric model. In the current study, we investigated associations between SLEs and depression risk in a population-based twin sample (N = 2299).

A co-twin control design was used to investigate the influence of the occurrence of SLEs on depression risk. The co-twin control design involves comparing patterns of associations in the full sample and within dizygotic (DZ) and monozygotic twins (MZ). Associations were modelled using discrete-time survival analysis with biometric frailty terms. Data from two time points were used in the analyses. Mean age at Wave 1 was 28 years and mean age at Wave 2 was 38 years.

SLE occurrence was associated with increased depression risk. Co-twin control analyses indicated that this association was at least in part due to the causal influence of SLE exposure on depression risk for event occurrence across all SLEs and for violent SLEs. A minor proportion of the total genetic risk of depression reflected genetic effects related to SLEs.

The results support previous research in implicating SLEs as important risk factors with probable causal influence on depression risk.