Parental death during childhood and adult depression
Abstract
Parental death during childhood is widely viewed as an event so traumatic that it produces not only immediate grief and despondency but also a predisposition to react with depression when faced with loss or rejection in adult life. Empirical evidence relating to the relationship between parental death and depression is provided by more than 20 controlled studies conducted during the past 2 decades. A critical review of these studies is presented, and it is concluded that parental death during childhood has not been established as a factor of etiologic significance in adult depression or any subtype of adult depression studied to date.
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