Candidate gene studies have been a key approach to the genetics of schizophrenia (SCZ). However, the results of these studies are confusing and no genes have been unequivocally implicated. The hypothesis-driven candidate gene literature can be appraised by comparison with the results of genome-wide association studies (GWAS).

We describe the characteristics of hypothesis-driven candidate gene studies from the SZGene database, and use pathway analysis to compare hypothesis-driven candidate genes with GWAS results from the International Schizophrenia Consortium (ISC).

SZGene contained 732 autosomal genes evaluated in 1374 studies. These genes had poor statistical power to detect genetic effects typical for human diseases, assessed only 3.7% of genes in the genome, and had low marker densities per gene. Most genes were assessed once or twice (76.9%), providing minimal ability to evaluate consensus across studies. The ISC studies had 89% power to detect a genetic effect typical for common human diseases and assessed 79% of known autosomal common genetic variation. Pathway analyses did not reveal enrichment of smaller ISC p values in hypothesis-driven candidate genes, nor did a comprehensive evaluation of meta-hypotheses driving candidate gene selection (SCZ as a disease of the synapse or neurodevelopment). The most studied hypothesis-driven candidate genes (COMT, DRD3, DRD2, HTR2A, NRG1, BDNF, DTNBP1 and SLC6A4) had no notable ISC results.

We did not find support for the idea that the hypothesis-driven candidate genes studied in the literature are enriched for the common genetic variation involved in the etiology of SCZ. Larger samples are required to evaluate this conclusion definitively.

To date, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has made little impact on the diagnosis and monitoring of psychoses in individual patients. In this study, we used a support vector machine (SVM) whole-brain classification approach to predict future illness course at the individual level from MRI data obtained at the first psychotic episode.

One hundred patients at their first psychotic episode and 91 healthy controls had an MRI scan. Patients were re-evaluated 6.2 years (s.d.=2.3) later, and were classified as having a continuous, episodic or intermediate illness course. Twenty-eight subjects with a continuous course were compared with 28 patients with an episodic course and with 28 healthy controls. We trained each SVM classifier independently for the following contrasts: continuous versus episodic, continuous versus healthy controls, and episodic versus healthy controls.

At baseline, patients with a continuous course were already distinguishable, with significance above chance level, from both patients with an episodic course (p=0.004, sensitivity=71, specificity=68) and healthy individuals (p=0.01, sensitivity=71, specificity=61). Patients with an episodic course could not be distinguished from healthy individuals. When patients with an intermediate outcome were classified according to the discriminating pattern episodic versus continuous, 74% of those who did not develop other episodes were classified as episodic, and 65% of those who did develop further episodes were classified as continuous (p=0.035).

We provide preliminary evidence of MRI application in the individualized prediction of future illness course, using a simple and automated SVM pipeline. When replicated and validated in larger groups, this could enable targeted clinical decisions based on imaging data.

Intrusive re-experiencing in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) comprises distressing sensory impressions from the trauma that seem to occur ‘out of the blue’. A key question is how intrusions are triggered. One possibility is that PTSD is characterized by a processing advantage for stimuli that resemble those that accompanied the trauma, which would lead to increased detection of such cues in the environment.

We used a blurred picture identification task in a cross-sectional (n=99) and a prospective study (n=221) of trauma survivors.

Participants with acute stress disorder (ASD) or PTSD, but not trauma survivors without these disorders, identified trauma-related pictures, but not general threat pictures, better than neutral pictures. There were no group differences in the rate of trauma-related answers to other picture categories. The relative processing advantage for trauma-related pictures correlated with re-experiencing and dissociation, and predicted PTSD at follow-up.

A perceptual processing bias for trauma-related stimuli may contribute to the involuntary triggering of intrusive trauma memories in PTSD.

Individuals with bipolar disorder demonstrate abnormal social function. Neuroimaging studies in bipolar disorder have shown functional abnormalities in neural circuitry supporting face emotion processing, but have not examined face identity processing, a key component of social function. We aimed to elucidate functional abnormalities in neural circuitry supporting face emotion and face identity processing in bipolar disorder.

Twenty-seven individuals with bipolar disorder I currently euthymic and 27 healthy controls participated in an implicit face processing, block-design paradigm. Participants labeled color flashes that were superimposed on dynamically changing background faces comprising morphs either from neutral to prototypical emotion (happy, sad, angry and fearful) or from one identity to another identity depicting a neutral face. Whole-brain and amygdala region-of-interest (ROI) activities were compared between groups.

There was no significant between-group difference looking across both emerging face emotion and identity. During processing of all emerging emotions, euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder showed significantly greater amygdala activity. During facial identity and also happy face processing, euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder showed significantly greater amygdala and medial prefrontal cortical activity compared with controls.

This is the first study to examine neural circuitry supporting face identity and face emotion processing in bipolar disorder. Our findings of abnormally elevated activity in amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) during face identity and happy face emotion processing suggest functional abnormalities in key regions previously implicated in social processing. This may be of future importance toward examining the abnormal self-related processing, grandiosity and social dysfunction seen in bipolar disorder.

Antidepressant drugs such as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) remediate negative biases in emotional processing in depressed patients in both behavioural and neural outcome measures. However, it is not clear if these effects occur before, or as a consequence of, changes in clinical state.

In the present study, we investigated the effects of short-term SSRI treatment in depressed patients on the neural response to fearful faces prior to clinical improvement in mood. Altogether, 42 unmedicated depressed patients received SSRI treatment (10 mg escitalopram daily) or placebo in a randomised, parallel-group design. The neural response to fearful and happy faces was measured on day 7 of treatment using functional magnetic resonance imaging. A group of healthy controls was imaged in the same way.

Amygdala responses to fearful facial expressions were significantly greater in depressed patients compared to healthy controls. However, this response was normalised in patients receiving 7 days treatment with escitalopram. There was no significant difference in clinical depression ratings at 7 days between the escitalopram and placebo-treated patients.

Our results suggest that short-term SSRI treatment in depressed patients remediates amygdala hyperactivity in response to negative emotional stimuli prior to clinical improvement in depressed mood. This supports the hypothesis that the clinical effects of antidepressant treatment may be mediated in part through early changes in emotional processing. Further studies will be needed to show if these early effects of antidepressant medication predict eventual clinical outcome.

The ‘vascular depression’ hypothesis states that brain changes located in frontal-subcortical pathways increase vulnerability for specific depressive symptom profiles, but studies examining locations of small-vessel and degenerative changes with individual symptoms are scarce. We examined whether location and progression of white-matter lesions (WMLs), lacunar infarcts and atrophy were associated with motivational and mood symptoms in patients with symptomatic atherosclerotic disease.

In 578 patients [63 (s.d.=8) years] of the Second Manifestations of ARTerial disease (SMART)-Medea study, volumes of WMLs and atrophy and visually rated infarcts were obtained with 1.5 T magnetic resonance imaging at baseline and after 3.9 (s.d.=0.4) years' follow-up. Depressive symptoms were assessed with Patient Health Questionnaire-9 at follow-up and categorized into motivational and mood symptoms.

Regression analyses adjusted for age, gender, education, Mini-Mental State Examination, physical functioning, antidepressant use and vascular risk factors showed that location in mainly deep white-matter tracts and progression of WMLs were associated with symptoms of anhedonia, concentration problems, psychomotor retardation and appetite disturbance. Lacunar infarcts in deep white matter were associated with greater motivational [Incidence rate ratio (IRR) 1.7, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2–2.4] and mood (IRR 1.7, 95% CI 1.1–2.6) sumscores, and with symptoms of psychomotor retardation, energy loss and depressed mood; lacunar infarcts in the thalamus were associated with psychomotor retardation only. Cortical atrophy was associated with symptoms of anhedonia and appetite disturbance. Excluding patients with major depression did not materially change the results.

Our findings suggest that disruption of frontal-subcortical pathways by small-vessel lesions leads to a symptom profile that is mainly characteristic of motivational problems, also in the absence of major depression.

Self-harm is a common reason for Emergency Department (ED) attendance. We aimed to develop a clinical tool to help identify patients at higher risk of repeat self-harm, or suicide, within 6 months of an ED self-harm presentation.

The tool, the ReACT Self-Harm Rule, was derived using multicentre data from a prospective cohort study. Binary recursive partitioning was applied to data from two centres, and data from a separate centre were used to test the tool. There were 29 571 self-harm presentations to five hospital EDs between January 2003 and June 2007, involving 18 680 adults aged ⩾16 years. We estimated sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values to measure the performance of the tool.

A self-harm presentation was classified as higher risk if at least one of the following factors was present: recent self-harm (in the past year), living alone or homelessness, cutting as a method of harm and treatment for a current psychiatric disorder. The rule performed with 95% sensitivity [95% confidence interval (CI) 94–95] and 21% specificity (95% CI 21–22), and had a positive predictive value of 30% (95% CI 30–31) and a negative predictive value of 91% (95% CI 90–92) in the derivation centres; it identified 83/92 of all subsequent suicides.

The ReACT Self-Harm Rule might be used as a screening tool to inform the process of assessing self-harm presentations to ED. The four risk factors could also be used as an adjunct to in-depth psychosocial assessment to help guide risk formulation. The use of multicentre data helped to maximize the generalizability of the tool, but we need to further verify its external validity in other localities.

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) has been widely used to investigate the bodily self in healthy individuals. The aim of the present study was to extend the use of the RHI to examine the bodily self in eating disorders (EDs).

The RHI and self-report measures of ED psychopathology [the Eating Disorder Inventory – 3 (EDI-3) subscales of Drive for Thinness, Bulimia, Body Dissatisfaction, Interoceptive Deficits, and Emotional Dysregulation; the 21-item Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21); and the Self-Objectification Questionnaire (SOQ)] were administered to 78 individuals with an ED and 61 healthy controls.

Individuals with an ED experienced the RHI significantly more strongly than healthy controls on both perceptual (i.e. proprioceptive drift) and subjective (i.e. self-report questionnaire) measures. Furthermore, both the subjective experience of the RHI and associated proprioceptive biases were correlated with ED psychopathology. Approximately 23% of the variance for embodiment of the fake hand was accounted for by ED psychopathology, with interoceptive deficits and self-objectification significant predictors of embodiment.

These results indicate that the bodily self is more plastic in people with an ED. These findings may shed light on both aetiological and maintenance factors involved in EDs, particularly visual processing of the body, interoceptive deficits, and self-objectification.

It is clinically important to understand the factors that increase the likelihood of the frequent and recurrent suicide attempts seen in those with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Although several studies have examined this subject in a cross-sectional manner, the aim of this study was to determine the most clinically relevant baseline and time-varying predictors of suicide attempts over 16 years of prospective follow-up among patients with BPD.

Two-hundred and ninety in-patients meeting Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines (DIB-R) and DSM-III-R criteria for BPD were assessed during their index admission using a series of semistructured interviews and self-report measures. These subjects were then reassessed using the same instruments every 2 years. The generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach was used to model the odds of suicide attempts in longitudinal analyses, controlling for assessment period, yielding an odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for each predictor.

Nineteen variables were found to be significant bivariate predictors of suicide attempts. Eight of these, seven of which were time-varying, remained significant in multivariate analyses: diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD), substance use disorder (SUD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), presence of self-harm, adult sexual assault, having a caretaker who has completed suicide, affective instability, and more severe dissociation.

The results of this study suggest that prediction of suicide attempts among borderline patients is complex, involving co-occurring disorders, co-occurring symptoms of BPD (self-harm, affective reactivity and dissociation), adult adversity, and a family history of completed suicide.

Previous studies have suggested that beliefs about voices mediate the relationship between actual voice experience and behavioural and affective response.

We investigated beliefs about voice power (omnipotence), voice intent (malevolence/benevolence) and emotional and behavioural response (resistance/engagement) using the Beliefs About Voices Questionnaire – Revised (BAVQ-R) in 46 voice hearers. Distress was assessed using a wide range of measures: voice-related distress, depression, anxiety, self-esteem and suicidal ideation. Voice topography was assessed using measures of voice severity, frequency and intensity. We predicted that beliefs about voices would show a stronger association with distress than voice topography.

Omnipotence had the strongest associations with all measures of distress included in the study whereas malevolence was related to resistance, and benevolence to engagement. As predicted, voice severity, frequency and intensity were not related to distress once beliefs were accounted for.

These results concur with previous findings that beliefs about voice power are key determinants of distress in voice hearers, and should be targeted specifically in psychological interventions.

Although antipsychotic medication is the first line of treatment for schizophrenia, many service users choose to refuse or discontinue their pharmacological treatment. Cognitive therapy (CT) has been shown to be effective when delivered in combination with antipsychotic medication, but has yet to be formally evaluated in its absence. This study evaluates CT for people with psychotic disorders who have not been taking antipsychotic medication for at least 6 months.

Twenty participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders received CT in an open trial. Our primary outcome was psychiatric symptoms measured using the Positive and Negative Syndromes Scale (PANSS), which was administered at baseline, 9 months (end of treatment) and 15 months (follow-up). Secondary outcomes were dimensions of hallucinations and delusions, self-rated recovery and social functioning.

T tests and Wilcoxon's signed ranks tests revealed significant beneficial effects on all primary and secondary outcomes at end of treatment and follow-up, with the exception of self-rated recovery at end of treatment. Cohen's d effect sizes were moderate to large [for PANSS total, d=0.85, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.32–1.35 at end of treatment; d=1.26, 95% CI 0.66–1.84 at follow-up]. A response rate analysis found that 35% and 50% of participants achieved at least a 50% reduction in PANSS total scores by end of therapy and follow-up respectively. No patients deteriorated significantly.

This study provides preliminary evidence that CT is an acceptable and effective treatment for people with psychosis who choose not to take antipsychotic medication. An adequately powered randomized controlled trial is warranted.

Rates of alcohol disorders peak in late adolescence and decrease substantially into the mid-20s. Our aim was to identify risk factors that predict alcohol problems that persist into the mid-20s.

Data are from the prospective, population-based Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS; n=1420), which followed children through late adolescence and into young adulthood. Alcohol persisters were defined as subjects with an alcohol disorder (abuse or dependence) in late adolescence (ages 19 and 21 years) that continued to meet criteria for an alcohol disorder at the mid-20s assessment.

The 3-month prevalence of having an alcohol disorder (abuse or dependence) decreased markedly from late adolescence into the mid-20s. A third of late adolescents with an alcohol disorder continued to meet criteria for an alcohol disorder in young adulthood (37 of 144 who met criteria in late adolescence). Risk factors for persister status included multiple alcohol abuse criteria during late adolescence but no alcohol dependence criteria. Risk factors for persister status also included associated features of alcohol dependence such as craving alcohol and drinking to unconsciousness. Persister status was also associated with depression, cannabis dependence and illicit substance use, but not with other psychiatric disorders. More than 90% of late adolescents with three or more of the risk factors identified met criteria for a young adult alcohol disorder.

Symptoms of alcohol abuse, not dependence, best predict long-term persistence of alcohol problems. The set of risk factors identified may be a useful screen for selective and indicated prevention efforts.

The current study provides the first epidemiological estimates of lifetime mental disorders across NI based on DSM-IV criteria. Risk factors, delays in treatment and the experience of conflict are also examined.

Nationally representative face-to-face household survey of 4340 individuals aged ⩾18 years in NI using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Analyses were implemented using SAS and STATA software.

Lifetime prevalence of any disorder was 39.1% while projected lifetime risk was 48.6%. Individuals who experienced conflict were more likely to have had an anxiety, mood or impulse-control disorder. Treatment delays were substantial for anxiety and substance disorders.

Results from this study show that mental disorders are highly prevalent in Northern Ireland. The elevated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder in relation to other countries and the association of living ‘in a region of terror’ disorders suggests that civil conflict has had an additional impact on mental health. Given substantial delays in treatment, further research is required to investigate the factors associated with failure and delay in treatment seeking.

Early pubertal timing in girls is associated with elevated risk for dieting and eating pathology. The relative importance of biological versus socio-environmental mechanisms in explaining this association remains unclear. Moreover, these mechanisms may differ between objective measures of pubertal development and girls' subjective perceptions of their own maturation.

The sample comprised 924 sister pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Objective pubertal timing (menarcheal age), girls' perceptions of pubertal status and timing relative to peers, dieting and disordered eating behaviors were assessed during a series of confidential in-home interviews.

Behavioral genetic models indicated that common genetic influences accounted for the association between early menarcheal age and increased risk for dieting in adolescence. In contrast, girls' subjective perceptions of their timing relative to peers were associated with dieting through an environmental pathway. Overall, subjective and objective measures of pubertal timing accounted for 12% of the variance in dieting.

Genetic differences in menarcheal age increase risk for dieting among adolescent girls, while girls' perceptions of their maturation represent an environmentally mediated risk.

Traumatized individuals and particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients are characterized by memory disturbances that suggest altered memory control. The present study investigated the issue using an item method, directed forgetting (DF) paradigm in 51 civil war victims in Uganda. All participants had been exposed to severe traumatic stress and 26 additionally suffered from PTSD.

In an item cued, DF paradigm photographs were presented, each followed by an instruction to either remember or forget it. A recognition test for all initially presented photographs and thematically similar distracters followed. DF patterns were compared between the non-PTSD and the PTSD groups. Post-experimental ratings of picture valence and arousal were collected and correlated with DF.

Results revealed DF, that is, reduced recognition for ‘to-be-forgotten’ items in the non-PTSD but not in the PTSD group. Moreover, in the non-PTSD, but not in the PTSD group, false alarms were reduced for ‘to-be-remembered’ items. Finally, DF was reduced in those participants who rated the pictures as more arousing, the PTSD group giving, on average, higher arousal ratings.

Data indicate that DF is reduced in PTSD and that the reduction is related to stimulus arousal. Furthermore, individuals with PTSD are characterized by a more global encoding style than individuals without PTSD, reflected in a higher false alarm rate. In sum, traumatized individuals with (but not without) PTSD are impaired in their ability to selectively control episodic memory encoding. This impairment may contribute to clinical features of the disorder such as intrusions and flashbacks.

Psychotic symptoms, also termed psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in the absence of psychotic disorder, are common in adolescents and are associated with increased risk of schizophrenia-spectrum illness in adulthood. At the same time, schizophrenia is associated with deficits in social cognition, with deficits particularly documented in facial emotion recognition (FER). However, little is known about the relationship between PLEs and FER abilities, with only one previous prospective study examining the association between these abilities in childhood and reported PLEs in adolescence. The current study was a cross-sectional investigation of the association between PLEs and FER in a sample of Irish adolescents.

The Adolescent Psychotic-Like Symptom Screener (APSS), a self-report measure of PLEs, and the Penn Emotion Recognition-40 Test (Penn ER-40), a measure of facial emotion recognition, were completed by 793 children aged 10–13 years.

Children who reported PLEs performed significantly more poorly on FER (β=−0.03, p=0.035). Recognition of sad faces was the major driver of effects, with children performing particularly poorly when identifying this expression (β=−0.08, p=0.032).

The current findings show that PLEs are associated with poorer FER. Further work is needed to elucidate causal relationships with implications for the design of future interventions for those at risk of developing psychosis.

Depression is recognized as being associated with increased mortality. However, there has been little previous research on the impact of longitudinal changes in late-life depressive symptoms on mortality, and of their remission in particular.

As part of a prospective, population-based study on a random sample of 5632 subjects aged 65–84 years, with a 10-year follow-up of vital status, depressive symptoms were assessed by the 30-item Italian version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The number of participants in the GDS measurements was 3214 at baseline and 2070 at the second survey, 3 years later. Longitudinal changes in depressive symptoms (stable, remitted, worsened) were examined in participants in both evaluations (n=1941). Mortality hazard ratios (MHRs) according to severity of symptoms and their changes over time were obtained by means of Cox proportional hazards regression models, adjusting for age and other potentially confounding factors.

Severity is significantly associated with excess mortality in both genders. Compared to the stability of depressive symptoms, a worsened condition shows a higher 7-year mortality risk [MHR 1.46, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.15–1.84], whereas remission reduces by about 40% the risk of mortality in both genders (women MHR 0.55, 95% CI 0.32–0.95; men MHR 0.59, 95% CI 0.37–0.93). Neither sociodemographic nor medical confounders significantly modified these associations.

Consistent with previous reports, the severity and persistence of depression are associated with higher mortality risks. Our findings extend the magnitude of the association demonstrating that remission of symptoms is related to a significant reduction in mortality, highlighting the need to enhance case-finding and successful treatment of late-life depression.

There is limited information about psychological predictors of cosmetic surgery and how cosmetic surgery influences subsequent changes in mental health and overall appearance satisfaction. To date, there is a lack of studies examining this issue, whereby representative population samples are assessed at an age before cosmetic surgery is typically conducted and followed up after such surgery has commonly been performed.

We obtained data from a survey study following 1597 adolescent females from a representative Norwegian sample over a 13-year period. Participants provided information on cosmetic surgery, appearance satisfaction, mental health, risky sexual behavior, drug use and conduct problems at two time-points (overall response rate 67%).

Of all participants, 78 (4.9%) reported having undergone cosmetic surgery, of whom 71 were operated on during the course of the study and seven before the first data collection. Symptoms of depression and anxiety [odds ratio (OR) 1.66, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–2.57] and a history of deliberate self-harm (OR 2.88, 95% CI 1.46–5.68), parasuicide (OR 3.29, 95% CI 1.53–7.08) and illicit drug use (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.07–5.82) predicted prospective cosmetic surgery. Moreover, those who underwent surgery during the course of the study experienced a greater increase than other females in symptoms of depression and anxiety (t=2.07, p=0.04) and eating problems (t=2.71, p<0.01). Patients' use of alcohol also increased more than among non-patients (t=2.47, p=0.01).

A series of mental health symptoms predict cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery does not in turn seem to alleviate such mental health problems.

We examined the extent to which trait anger and psychopathic traits predicted post-discharge self-directed violence (SDV) and other-directed violence (ODV) among psychiatric patients.

Participants were 851 psychiatric patients sampled from in-patient hospitals for the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study (MVRAS). Participants were administered baseline interviews at the hospital and five follow-up interviews in the community at approximately 10-week intervals. Psychopathy and trait anger were assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PSC:SV) and the Novaco Anger Scale (NAS) respectively. SDV was assessed during follow-ups with participants and ODV was assessed during interviews with participants and collateral informants. Psychopathy facets and anger were entered in logistic regression models to predict membership in one of four groups indicating violence status during follow-up: (1) SDV, (2) ODV, (3) co-occurring violence (COV), and (4) no violence.

Anger predicted membership in all three violence groups relative to a non-violent reference group. In unadjusted models, all psychopathy facets predicted ODV and COV during follow-up. In adjusted models, interpersonal and antisocial traits of psychopathy predicted membership in the ODV group whereas only antisocial traits predicted membership in the COV group.

Although our results provide evidence for a broad role for trait anger in predicting SDV and ODV among discharged psychiatric patients, they suggest that unique patterns of psychopathic traits differentially predict violence toward self and others. The measurement of anger and facets of psychopathy during discharge planning for psychiatric patients may provide clinicians with information regarding risk for specific types of violence.

Evidence for an effect of work stressors on common mental disorders (CMD) has increased over the past decade. However, studies have not considered whether the effects of work stressors on CMD remain after taking co-occurring non-work stressors into account.

Data were from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a national population survey of participants ⩾16 years living in private households in England. This paper analyses data from employed working age participants (N=3383: 1804 males; 1579 females). ICD-10 diagnoses for depressive episode, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, panic or mixed anxiety and depression in the past week were derived using a structured diagnostic interview. Questionnaires assessed self-reported work stressors and non-work stressors.

The effects of work stressors on CMD were not explained by co-existing non-work stressors. We found independent effects of work and non-work stressors on CMD. Job stress, whether conceptualized as job strain or effort–reward imbalance, together with lower levels of social support at work, recent stressful life events, domestic violence, caring responsibilities, lower levels of non-work social support, debt and poor housing quality were all independently associated with CMD. Social support at home and debt did not influence the effect of work stressors on CMD.

Non-work stressors do not appear to make people more susceptible to work stressors; both contribute to CMD. Tackling workplace stress is likely to benefit employee psychological health even if the employee's home life is stressful but interventions incorporating non-work stressors may also be effective.