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In this study, depression among patients visiting general practitioners was examined by administering a short self-report measure of depression to 1,250 patients visiting 37 general practitioners in three Canadian centres (Winnipeg, Brandon and Virden). According to scores on the CES-D scale, 66.8% of the patients were judged to be normal, 11.8% were experiencing mild depression, 13.3% moderate depression and 8.1% were experiencing fairly severe depression. Depression scores were highest among female patients, patients who lived in Winnipeg, patients who were unemployed and patients who were divorced or separated.

In this study an attempt was made to examine the association between depression and parental loss by death while avoiding some of the methodological problems that have plagued previous studies of this type. The Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was administered to a sample of 1,250 patients in general practitioners' offices. Patients were asked to indicate whether they had lost a mother or father by death and their age when this loss occurred. One-way analysis of variance produced a significant father-loss effect (p < .01) on depression, with patients reporting a father loss in the 0 to 6 and 10 to 15 age ranges, having the highest depression scores. No significant effect for mother loss occurred. The father-loss effect remained the same when other demographic factors including city of testing, sex, marital status, occupational status, age, and education were controlled.

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