Over Half of Russian Women May Be Depressed
In a 2013 article in the journal European Psychiatry, in which researcher Valery V. Gafarov examined depression’s influence on cardiovascular health in Russia, an astonishing 55.2% of women aged 25–64 years in the study were diagnosed with depression. The study, in which 870 women in the city of Novosibirsk were surveyed over 16 years from 1995 to 2010, was part of a World Health Organization program called “MONICA-psychosocial.”
The researchers collected information on the incidence of myocardial infarction (heart attack), arterial hypertension, and stroke among the women. Over the 16 years of the study, 2.2% of the women had heart attacks and 5.1% had strokes. Women with depression were 2.53 times more likely to have a heart attack and 4.63 times more likely to have a stroke than women without depression.
Among women with average education levels, married women with depression were more likely to have heart attacks, hypertension, and strokes. Hypertension was more likely among women who worked as managers or light manual laborers.
