The occurrence of a stressful event is considered to increase the risk of developing depression. In the present study we explore whether the breakup of a romantic relationship can be used as an experimental model to study a depression-like state during a period of stress in individuals without a psychiatric disorder. The primary aim of our study was to investigate: 1) whether individuals with a recent romantic relationship breakup (‘‘heartbreak”) demonstrate symptoms of depression, 2) how to describe heartbreak characteristics based on data from a comprehensive questionnaire battery, and 3) whether this description can capture severity of depression symptoms. Secondary, we were interested in gender differences with regard to the above study objectives. Subjects who have experienced a relationship breakup in the preceding six months (N = 71) or are in a romantic relationship (N = 46) participated in our study. A questionnaire battery was administered to acquire information related to depression, mood, the breakup and (former) relationship. Principal Component Analysis with Procrustes bootstrapping was performed to extract components from the questionnaire data. Even though our sample of individuals who recently have experienced a relationship breakup can be on average considered non-depressed, group-level depression scores were elevated compared to individuals in a relationship (p = .001) and 26.8% reported symptoms corresponding to mild, moderate or severe depression. We described heartbreak by two principal components interpreted as ‘‘sudden loss” and ‘‘lack of positive affect”, respectively. Highly significant correlations between the component scores and depression scores were found (p < .001 and p < .001, respectively), although these correlations differed between the genders. Based on these findings, we propose that the experience of a romantic relationship breakup is a viable experimental model to examine symptoms of depression in individuals without a psychiatric disorder. This way, stress-related coping and depression vulnerability can be studied in further research.
Citation: Verhallen In the morning, Renken RJ, ) Romantic relationship separation: An experimental design to study results of strain on anxiety (-like) attacks. PLoS That fourteen(5): e0217320.
Copyright: © 2019 Verhallen mais aussi al. This is exactly an unbarred accessibility article marketed under the regards to the fresh Imaginative Commons Attribution Licenses, which it permits open-ended explore, delivery, and you can breeding in every medium, provided the original publisher and origin try credited.
Romantic relationship separation: A fresh design to examine outcomes of strain on anxiety (-like) periods
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Funding: The study is actually financed by a contribution away from Mr Hazewinkel to help you the analysis College away from Behavioural and you may Intellectual Neurosciences and you will Prof Grams.J. ter Horst. Mr Hazewinkel didn’t come with role during the studies construction, analysis collection and you may data, decision to share, or preparation of your own manuscript.
Introduction
Stressed life-incidents are believed are chance circumstances to the growth of anxiety. Kendler et al. examined the newest interplay between stressful incidents, genetic predisposition and you will anxiety certainly one of women twins and discovered one to both genetics and you can occurrence regarding tiring situations contributed to the onset of depressive episodes individually. Particularly situations with a high perception, such as death of an almost friend and you may separation, raised the probability of developing an effective depressive event, while the most of people don’t create good depressive episode following connection with an upsetting experiences. And therefore, search centering on tiring and you can emotionally upsetting events gives valuable wisdom towards individual distinctions from fret-relevant dealing together with link between be concerned and anxiety.