Abstract:
Depression is a prevalent disorder estimated to affect 121
million people at a given time. Those who have
depression suffer predominantly from negative mood
states and are believed to be at risk of other debilitative
conditions such as sleep disorder, fatigue, and heart
disease. This paper is interested in exploring the
relationship between depressive mood and fatigue. To
obtain a better understanding of the association between
these two problems, the relationship between depression
and fatigue in a non-clinical population was studied. A
group of fifty participants aged between 17 to 60 years
completed the Profile of Mood-States (POMS) before
participating in a simulated driving task aimed at
inducing fatigue.The Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS) was
administered both before and after driving. Negative
mood states such as depression, tension and anger were
found to have strong positive correlations with fatigue
(p<.05). Furthermore, there was a consistent trend for
people with low levels of negative mood states such as
depressive mood, tension and anger to drive for longer
without fatiguing, relative to those with higher levels of
negative mood states. Findings suggest that negative
mood states decrease the time a person can perform a
simulated driving task before they fatigue and
implications for road and work safety and the
management for people who are depressed are discussed.
