Role of social psychological factors in occurrence of depression

Objective:To explore the relationship among the occurrence of depression and the aspects of life event,social support and defense style. Method:54 patients with depression and 50 normal controls were tested with life event scale (LES),social support rating scale(SSRS)and defense style questionnaire(DSQ). Results:In the depression group,the negative stimulative score (23.42±15.21) and total stimulative score (38.27±32.56) of LES were higher,but the total score of social support (32.69±9.33),objective support score (9.87±3.24),subjective support score (16.38±5.27) and availability score (4.29±1.99) of SSRS were lower, they were significant differences between the two group (t=2.36 to 4.42,P0.05 to 0.01). The scores of immature defense styles (4.41±0.81) and neurotic defense styles (4.37±0.56) in the study group were significantly higher than those of the control group(t=4.23 to 3.52,P0.01). Conclusion:The occurrencce of depression is possibly related with negative life events and the deficiency of the social support system,immature defense styles.