Sadness over death of spouse doesn't always lead to depression

A new study has revealed that "sadness" after the death of a spouse is usually misdiagnosed by the doctors as depression, as it only causes depression-like symptoms.

The study conducted at KU Leuven analyzed the behavior of recently widowed elderly people and observed that spousal loss causes a very small number of specific depression symptoms, like loneliness, and these initial depression symptoms in turn trigger a specific network of subsequent depression symptoms.

Dr. Eiko Fried, lead author suggested that instead of targeting depression in general, targeting key symptoms specifically such as loneliness might prevent the activation of further symptoms in a person's psychopathological network and prevent the development of a full-fledged depression.

Fried further added that usually these symptoms has been a topic of huge debate, and in many people who exhibit a normal grief response after losing their partner, normal sadness might be misdiagnosed as pathological depression.

The study is published in the journal of Abnormal Psychology.