An individual-based model for predicting the prevalence of depression

•The epidemic of depression is modeled by considering risk factors causing it.•The model was simulated with official statistics from Brazil and Germany.•The depression prevalence in women is higher, but they may be more resilient. Major depressive disorder (depression) is a common psychiatric illnes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological complexity 2019-04, Vol.38, p.168-172
Main Authors: Loula, R., Monteiro, L.H.A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Depression
Epidemiology
Individual-based model
Prevalence
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Summary:•The epidemic of depression is modeled by considering risk factors causing it.•The model was simulated with official statistics from Brazil and Germany.•The depression prevalence in women is higher, but they may be more resilient. Major depressive disorder (depression) is a common psychiatric illness. Here, a discrete-time individual-based model is proposed to predict the time evolution of the percentage of people suffering from depression. A normalized index Ii is introduced to reflect the psychological health condition of the ith individual: low values of Ii correspond to mentally healthy; high values, to depressive state. Changes on Ii are driven by rules that depend on the psychiatric histories and socio-demographic features of the individuals, on the risk factors affecting them, and on the recovery rate. Computational simulations were performed by using official data from Brazil and Germany in the latest years. Despite the prevalence in women being higher, the model fits the data only if women are more cognitively resilient to depression compared to men; that is, when exposed to the same risk factors, the value of Ii for women is lower than the value of Ii for men.
ISSN:1476-945X
DOI:10.1016/j.ecocom.2019.03.003