Major Depression (MD) is a serious psychiatric disease that, in our country, affects some 6 million individuals. Its lifetime prevalence is 8.9% for men and 16.5% for women, and its incidence has been increasing in recent decades.

Depression is characterised by mood, behavioural, and physical changes; it is often recurrent, becoming chronic in 25% of cases, and may occur at any age, causing great disability in the patients who experience it. In fact, according to a study published by the World Health Organisation, Major Depression will be the second leading cause of disability in the year 2020. It is a far-reaching public health problem with a high economic, societal, and personal cost, since, for example, MD is present in 70% of completed suicides

It is estimated that only half of patients with Major Depression are detected and correctly diagnosed and, of those, not all receive appropriate treatment.

CIBERSAM Research in Depressive Disorder
The CIBERSAM’s general objective is to promote co-operative and translational research to decrease the public health, societal, and personal costs associated with depressive disease, through quality research in the areas of epidemiology, etiopathogenesis, physiopathology, prevention, and therapeutics, in addition to facilitating the dissemination of that information to the National Health System.

Coordination and member groups

Coordinator: Victor Perez

Groups members:

• Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Medicina ( Jorge A Cervilla Ballesteros )
  

• Hospital de la Santa Creu i santa Pau ( Victor Perez )
  

• Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge ( Jose Manuel Menchon Magriña )
  

• Universidad de Cantabria. Facultad de Medicina ( Ángel Armando Pazos Carro )
  

• Hospital Clínico Universitario ( Antonio Lobo Satué )
  

• Hospital Universitario La Princesa ( José Luis Ayuso Mateos )
  

• Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas ( Francesc Artigas Pérez )