Manifestations of clinical depression in daily life: a daily diary study of descriptions of naturally occurring events

Abstract

In the present study, clinically depressed (n = 135) and non-depressed adults (n = 138) described the events that happened to them each day for two weeks, and these descriptions were content analysed. Participants also rated how stressful and how positive each event was. Multilevel analyses found that depressed individuals, compared to the non-depressed, used more negative emotion words and more pronouns and used fewer positive emotion words, and they rated events as more stressful and less positive. Stressfulness of events was positively related to the use of pronouns and negative emotion words and was negatively related to the use of positive emotion words. Relationships between positivity of events and word counts were in the opposite direction. Controlling for stressfulness or positivity of events eliminated differences between the depressed and non-depressed in word use, except for use of other-pronouns words. Compared to the non-depressed, depressed people may either experience a greater number of objectively stressful or less pleasant daily events or perceive naturally occurring daily events as more stressful and less positive, and they describe daily events in ways that are consistent with such differences.

Keywords: Content analysis; daily stress; depression; diary study.