Subjective Well-Being as an indicator for clinical

depression

Student Adriana GargiuloSupervisor A/ Professor Mark

Stokes

Background

Subjective Well-Being (SWB)

Homeostasis Theory - Cummins (1995, 1998)

SWB (.70 - .80%) SM

Changing levels of SWB as homeostasis is challenged (Cummins, Lau & Davern, in press).

Clinical depression = failure of Homeostasis = loss of SWB.

Rationale for this research

Hypothesis:

People with clinical depression would have a SWB below the normative range 70-80% of the Scale Maximum (SM).

Methodology

146 men part of a larger study

Personal Well-Being Index-Adult (PWI-A)

Semi-structured Clinical Interview (SCID-I/NP)

Analysis One way Between Subjects

ANOVA

Psychopathology vs. PWI-A scores

Means and Standard Deviations of Subjective Well-being Between Groups

Levels of the Independent VariableNo Psycho-pathology

Currently depressed

Previously depressed

Other non-depressive

Psycho-pathology

Number of Participants

110 14 18 4

Mean

82.40 60.61 82.06

67.14

Standard Deviation

12.29 15.94

8.2314.98

Mean Effects for Psychopathology

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve analysis

Findings

Support for Cummins proposition:

Loss of SWB indicates Clinical depression.

However, PWI-A not sufficiently specific as a diagnostic

tool –

PWI-A could be used as a screening tool.

Thank You