Consonância cultural e depressão na comunidade: um estudo longitudinal / Cultural consonance and depression in community: a longitudinal study.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The influence of culture on physiological and psychological outcomes has been discussed frequently in the research literature. This type of study confronts serious conceptual and methodological problems. The concept and measurement of cultural consonance has been proposed as a solution for these problems. Cultural consonance refers to the degree to which each individual approximates, in his own behavior or beliefs the prototypes for belief and behavior codified in shared cultural models. The objective of this work was to analyze correlations between cultural consonance and depression evaluated in two distinct time periods with an interval of two years between the first and second applications. Initially, the study evaluated 271 subjects distributed into four socio-economically stratified districts of a city from the inland of the state of São Paulo. Two years after the first application, all subjects were once again invited to participate in the research and 210 agreed, composing the total subjects of the second sample, which is equivalent to 77.5% of participation rate in the follow-up study. Cultural consonance scales assessing four cultural domains were applied in both time periods, lifestyles (CCEV, CCEV2), social support (CCSS, CCSS2), family life (CCVF, CCVF2) and national characteristics (CCCN, CCCN2), as well as a depression scale, also applied in both periods (CES-D, CES-D2). Stressful life events, a known correlate of depression, was also included in the study. The aim of including this variable was to assess the correlation of cultural consonance with depression, controlling for a known effect on depression. The results obtained by means of the Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated correlations in all cultural consonance scales CCEV x CCEV2 (r = .815), CCSS x CCSS2 (r = .569), CCVF x CCVF2 (r = .647), CCCN x CCCN2 (r = .604), and all correlations presented significance level of p<0.01. The correlation between CES-D x CES-D2 (r = .622) also presented significance level of p<0.01. Correlations between cultural consonance and depression were observed in both time periods. When cultural consonance in the domains of lifestyle, social support and family life was considered, higher scores on each measure were associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms. On the other hand, when national characteristics domain was considered, the results obtained were the opposite, indicating that the higher the cultural consonance in this domains is, the higher the depression values will be. Controlling results by stressful life events, an effect of the cultural consonance on depression was observed in the following cultural domains: lifestyle (r = -.355), family life (r = -.308) and national characteristics (r = .250), with significance levels for lifestyle and family life of p<0.01 and for national characteristics of p<0.05. A cultural consonance general factor was calculated and its correlation with depression, controlled by stressful life events, verified (r = -.267), with significance level of p<0.05. These results suggest cultural consonance as an independent variable associated to depression in community (r2 = .071), which could explain from 5% to 10% of this distribution. The cultural consonance theoretical and empirical model seems to be a useful alternative for studies developed in the community in the agenda of studies involving culture and depression.

ASSUNTO(S)

culture cultura depression cultural consonance consonância cultural depressão

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados