Trend in the prevalence of depression and correlates in Brazil: results from the National Health Surveys 2013 and 2019

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Claudia de Souza
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Gomes, Nayara Lopes, Junger, Washington Leite, Menezes, Paulo Rossi
• Tipo de documento: preprint
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: SciELO Preprints
• Texto Completo: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/2388
• topic: Trend study; Health surveys; Depression; Mental health

This study aims to evaluate national variation in depression prevalence overall and in different socioeconomic and demographic groups, health behaviors, and macro-regions of the country, between 2013 and 2019. Data were obtained from the National Health Surveys – PNS 2013 and 2019, which are cross-sectional surveys of the Brazilian general population. Participants aged 18 years and older included 60,202 individuals in 2013 and 88,531 in 2019. Depression was evaluated through the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Calculations were carried out population-weighted. Additional age-standardized analyses were conducted to account for demographic changes. The results showed that in the six-year period between the two surveys, the prevalence of depression in Brazil increased by 36.7%, going from 7.9% in 2013 to 10.8% in 2019, this increase is more marked among young adults, 18 to 24 years old, who were not working, where there was a significant and almost three-fold absolute difference increase in the prevalence of depression (3.7 in 2013 and 10.3 in 2019), an increase of 178.4%. Those living in urban areas of the country had a greater increase in the prevalence of depression in the six-year period (39.8%) when compared to residents in rural areas (20.2%). There was an increase in the prevalence of depression between 2013 and 2019 for the worst categories of the three health behaviors under study, for both sexes: heavy drinking, smoking, and lack of physical activity, following the pattern observed for the general population. Our results show evidence of a significant increase in the prevalence of depression over the six-year period between the two surveys, mainly among the younger and unemployed men. The country´s economic context of recession during this period may be an explanation for this finding.