Social origins of depression: a reply

Many of the criticisms of our work made by Tennant & Bebbington in the current edition of this journal touch on issues which have already been discussed in our recent book Social Origins of Depression. We do not think that any of their points pose significant threats to our aetiological model of depression. We welcome this opportunity to clarify their questions about our data, and to use their re-analysis of our material as a basis for a wider discussion of certain general aspects of the statistical analysis and interpretation of data and the pitfalls which await the unwary.