Depression Second Leading Cause of Disability Across the World

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the second leading cause of disability across the world and a major contributor to the burden of suicide and ischemic heart disease, a new study found.

In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Plos Medicine, researchers found that depressive disorders were second only to lower respiratory infections when it came to inflicting the most years of disability on people throughout the world.

The researchers added together the "years lived with a disability" (YLDs) and the "years of life lost because of disease-specific premature death" (YLLs) from the studies. This gave them an estimated measure of disease burden, known as "disability-adjusted life years" (DALYs).

"These findings reinforce the importance of treating depressive disorders as a public-health priority and of implementing cost-effective interventions to reduce their ubiquitous burden," wrote lead author Alize Ferrari, a researcher at Australia's University of Queensland, and colleagues.

MDD and dysthymia were also leading causes of DALYs, accounting for 2.5% and 0.5% of global DALYs, respectively.

To reach their findings, the research team analyzed information from all published research that studied major depressive disorder and dysthymia - a milder but chronic form of depression.

"This has important implications for global health, especially in developing countries where increased life expectancy due to better reproductive health, nutrition, and control of childhood infectious diseases means more of the population are living to the age where depressive disorders are prevalent," authors said.