Relationship between Sociodemographic Factors and Depression in Australian Population Aged 16–85 Years

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Research article in entitle of “Relationship between sociodemographic factors and depression in Australian population” 

This finding provides the evidence for significant associated factors, i.e., sex, age, life exposed to depression in Australian population’s 2007.  

Suggestions:  

1. Please update the information and statistics of Global Burden of diseases and recent references. 

2. How many total survey (population size)? 8841 is survey respondents, right? 

3. Please check the percentage of male and female (70% or 64% vs. 45.5% vs. 54.5%), household income in prevalent of the depression section (16.30% to 13.9% or 16.30% to 13.6%) 

4. In discussion, give more explanation regarding no association of level education with depression in Australian. 

5. Why young Australian is highly prevalent with depression? 

6. More discussion regarding to all of results can provide the recommendation or suggestion at the national level for Australian such as health policy. 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Felmingham and Islam present a manuscript detailing a study aimed at investigating the association of sociodemographic factors with depression from the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing data involving 8841 participants aged 16 to 85 years. The manuscript is very well written and the conclusions are quite valid. That said, a couple of concerns need to be addressed to improve the quality of the work:

1.     I will suggest that the title be revised to specify the population whose data was used for the study.

2.     The manuscript should be reread and corrected for grammatical errors, including the use of various punctuation. In particular, I have found several occasions excess spaces between words.

3.     It would have been important to include other sociodemographic parameters like marital status, nature of work, the system of work, form of employment, BMI, family history, immigrant status, and family history and other lifestyle factors like smoking and drug intake which could also affect mental health.

4.     It would be important to classify the extent of depression detected in the study population, e.g., mild, moderate, and severe, and indicate how the demographic parameters relate to each category

5.     The authors fail to indicate the cost or consequences of depression or depressive disorders on the population. This should be clearly mentioned in the introduction and the abstract to set the problem in its proper context.

6.     In lines, 47-60, the authors indicate some studies previously done in Australia and introduce their study. It will be important to briefly mention the results of these.

7.     Lastly, I believe that in beginning the discussion, the authors should clearly introduce the problem and restate the problem before going on to discuss their results.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

As a very common mental disorder, depression also has known risk factors, which the authors clearly exemplify. Due to its incidence and morbidity, it is an extremely relevant topic and should be considered for any scientific contribution that aims to elucidate aspects of this terrible burden. I congratulate the authors for the initiative.

The manuscript is clearly written and shows interesting results and considerations.

Still, I think that due to the disparities we have around the globe, it would be nice if the authors could clarify some specific data, such as:

- Income:

I have absolutely no idea how each group lives on just the numbers provided. Perhaps the authors will help us by providing a scenario on the living conditions that each group faces in terms of financial limitations, such as: do they live in precarious sanitary conditions? Do they have access to quality public health?)

- Age: Another interesting aspect is to dissect the purpose or social role of each person interviewed: elderly people are known to be at high risk, but apparently this decreases when they maintain some activity that gives them purpose, be it philanthropy, work or inclusive affective ties. This last consideration is just a suggestion, in case the authors intend to be of interest to address such data (if it can be recovered, even if in some cases).

Author Response

"Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf