• Yukihiro Nagase, Makoto Uchiyama, Yoshitaka Kaneita, Lan Li, Tatsuhiko Kaji, Sakae Takahashi, Michiko Konno, Kazuo Mishima, Toru Nishikawa, and Takashi Ohida.
• Department of Psychophysiology, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Tokyo, 187-8553.
• Psychiatry Res. 2009 Jun 30; 168 (1): 57-66.

AbstractThis study's aim was to examine the relation between depression and stress-coping strategy among the general population. The survey was conducted in June 2000, using a large sample representative of the Japanese general population. A total of 24,551 responses from individuals aged 20 years or older were analyzed. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to assess the prevalence of depression with two different cut-off points; 16 and 26. Stress-coping strategies were asked based on given examples of actual behaviors covering problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidant ones. There was no marked gender difference in the prevalence of a problem-solving strategy, while various types of gender differences were found with respect to the prevalence of emotion-focused and avoidant strategies. In relation to depression, multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed the significantly highest odds ratios (OR) for avoidant coping strategies and the lowest OR for problem-focused ones in both genders. The fact that depression was associated positively with avoidant strategies but negatively with problem-solving strategies indicates that individual stress-coping strategies have their own significance with respect to depression, and may be utilized in establishing an evidence-based cognitive behavioral approach to depressive patients.

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