No proof found that depression is 'contagious'

Well make sure you stay away from those other depressed stroke patients. And stay away from the depressing statements from your doctor.
Instead stay next to those laughing patients. Your doctor should be prescribing this.
Why is Laughter Contagious?
No proof found that depression is 'contagious'
'Can you catch depression?', the Mail Online website asks on the strength of new US research into the concept of 'cognitive vulnerability'.
Cognitive vulnerability is where unhelpful patterns of thinking can increase the risk of a person developing conditions such as depression. The researchers in this study were interested in the idea that cognitive vulnerability may be 'contagious'.
The study followed roughly 100 pairs of roommates at a US university for the first six months of their freshman (first) year. They wanted to see if one student's cognitive vulnerability might influence the cognitive vulnerability of their new roommate.
They found that students who shared a room with a person with higher cognitive vulnerability (theoretically more susceptible to depression) were more likely to show an increase in their own cognitive vulnerability three and six months later.
However, this short-term study does not prove that depression can be 'spread' – only one measure of cognitive vulnerability found that a roommate can influence another's mental health in a negative way.
The study did find that students who showed increases in cognitive vulnerability at three months were more likely to experience increased symptoms of depression at six months. But importantly, if one roommate became more depressed, the other roommate showed no change in their depressive symptoms.