Study Reveals If Depression is Contagious Between Friends

Posted on May 11, 2017

Research has shown that depression is not contagious among friends. Instead, a healthy mood among friends significantly reduces developing and increases our chances of recovering from depression.

These results may serve to provide key insights into improving the mood of adolescents. It has been found that encouraging teenagers to form stronger friendship networks could reduce depression rates among teenagers.

The study looked at how the moods of the adolescents changed in comparison to the mood of other students that were in their social group. It has been found that when someone’s friends were in the healthy mood, it halved the probability of someone developing depression. If someone was depressed to begin with, being in a mentally healthy and happy group doubled the chances of recovery.

It is critical to note that while having healthy friends can protect and cure us from depression, having depressed friends does not put us at risk of being depressed. Therefore, a stronger social network is definitely an effective way to treat depression and also, reduce the rates of depression among adolescents.


Category(s):Depression

Source material from Psyblog