The results of our study should be interpreted in the context of three potential methodological limitations. First, all cases in our study were selected from a clinical sample. Our results may not apply to MDD in community-acquired samples. Second, the sample was limited to Chinese Han women, so the results may not generalize to men and to individuals from other ethnic groups. Third, we cannot, in this sample, gain direct insight into the causal relationship between neuroticism and MDD as we assessed in a single interview the level of neuroticism and the lifetime history of MDD.
