Common-sense descriptions of depression as social representations.

Background: Major depression is such a prevalent illness worldwide that practically everyone has either direct or indirect experience of it. It is important, then, from both practical and theoretical points of view, to examine this particular experience and related conceptions.

Aim: Drawing on the theory of social representations, this research set out to examine the ways in which people define depression in terms of the symptoms they attribute to people they know personally and consider to suffer from depression.