Once again it seems that newspapers have been inaccurately reporting the results of scientific experiments to make them more ‘headline worthy’. The offending newspaper is the Daily Telegraph, which asserted an article titled: “Daily stresses take toll on long-term mental health”.
According to the newspaper: “that little row with your spouse or stress of finding yourself stuck in a traffic jam may be taking a heavier toll on your mental health than previously thought”, but is this really a fact or is it a misreading? Well, even though the research that the Daily Telegraph’s report based on is sound and the conclusions drawn are the same it doesn’t really tell the whole truth.
The Daily Telegraph’s story is based on a long-term study from America that measured what people said were their daily stress triggers or ‘stressors’ and how they said they emotionally reacted to those stressors. It then compared the findings with symptoms of mental health conditions a decade down the line.
Experiencing negative moods, feelings and emotions at the start of the researched was linked with whether people had symptoms indicative of major depression or generalised anxiety disorder after ten years. The reported emotional reaction to the stressors predicted whether people reported they had mental health issues, but not whether they had a diagnosis based on symptoms of these conditions.
The study had very serious limitations such as a low participation and a high drop-out rate make the conclusions that the Daily Telegraph drew very difficult to justify. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California Irvine, California State University Fullerton and Pennsylvania State University in the US, and was funded by the US National Institutes of Health.
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