[Stress and depression]

Stress largely influences our depression models. Animal models of depression and for the detection of antidepressants, and severity of psychosocial stressors scale have emphasized the role of stress in depression. Life events, who are understood as social stressors, may be recent prior to onset (6-12 months) of depression (provoking agents) or remote e.g. loss of parent in childhood (predisposing factors). Many results from studies must be interpreted cautiously because of retrospective designs and other methodological limitations. Among predisposing factors, loss due to separation may have a greater influence than loss due to death of a first-degree relative. Neurotic depressives sometimes have more provoking life events than endogenous depressive subjects but there is no difference in the augmentation of these life events prior to the onset of depression. Concerning the relapses and the recurrences, Kraepelin noted that the onset of new episodes seemed to become more autonomous. Several data do not confirm this classic position. What influence has the maintenance treatment on the stress reaction? Several psychosocial models of depression have taken into account the interactions of stress, life events and depression. In Harris and Brown's and Seligman's models, particular attention has been given to the notion of vulnerability in relation to the aetiology of depression. The view that neither vulnerability nor provoking agents by themselves explain the disorder gives rise to an alternative representation (Dohrenwend). Coping is of great interest to epidemiologists and geneticists in the problems of mental illness.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)