The results of our secondary meta-analyses, where we stratified studies by stressor type, provide insight into how the inclusion of studies missing from previous studies resulted in an overall highly significant result in our meta-analysis. Both previous meta-analyses focused exclusively on stressful life events and reported no evidence that 5-HTTLPR moderates the relationship between SLEs and depression. Here, we were able to include 11 additional SLE studies, most of which were published too recently for inclusion in the previous meta-analyses. Still, we found only marginal evidence that 5-HTTLPR moderates the relationship between stressful life events and depression6. In contrast, we found robust evidence that 5-HTTLPR moderates the relationship between both childhood maltreatment and specific stressors and depression.
