Health encyclopaedia - Alphabetical Topic List
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Causes of Depression
Lots of different factors can trigger depression. For some people, upsetting or stressful life events such as bereavement, divorce, illness, redundancy and job or money worries can be the cause. This is often known as ‘reactive’ depression - the depression is a reaction to the event. It’s also called exogenous depression (exogenous is a Latin word meaning ‘originating outside the body’).
In other cases, depression doesn’t have an obvious cause. This is sometimes called endogenous (meaning originating within the body).
Because depression can have many causes, it’s sometimes split into three broad groups; psychological, physical and social.
- Psychological – a stressful or upsetting life event causes a persistent low mood, low self-esteem and feelings of hopelessness about the future.
- Physical or chemical - depression is caused by changes in levels of chemicals in the brain. For example, your mood can change as hormone levels go up and down. This is sometimes seen in women and is associated with the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, and the menopause.
- Social understanding – doing fewer activities or having fewer interests can both cause depression and happen because of depression.
People who have a family history of depression also seem more likely to get depression themselves.
Quite often, depression can be triggered by more than one of these factors, and they can influence and affect each other in complicated ways.
Other frequent causes of depression include drinking excess alcohol and using street drugs such as cannabis and cocaine. Taking some prescribed medication e.g. propranolol can occasionally cause depression.
