Gender differences in the symptoms of major depressive disorder

Data from the Canadian Community Health Survey 1.2 were used for a gender analysis of individual symptoms and overall rates of depression in the preceding 12 months. Major depressive disorder was assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview in this national, cross-sectional survey. The female to male ratio of major depressive disorder prevalence was 1.64:1, with n = 1766 having experienced depression (men 668, women 1098). Women reported statistically more depressive symptoms than men (p < 0.001). Depressed women were more likely to report "increased appetite" (15.5% vs. 10.7%), being "often in tears" (82.6% vs. 44.0%), "loss of interest" (86.9% vs. 81.1%), and "thoughts of death" (70.3% vs. 63.4%). No significant gender differences were found for the remaining symptoms. The data are interpreted against women's greater tendency to cry and to restrict food intake when not depressed. The question is raised whether these items preferentially bias assessment of gender differences in depression, particularly in nonclinic samples.     

重性抑郁障碍的临床特征及其性别差异

目的了解重性抑郁障碍的临床特征及其性别差异。方法采用多阶段分层整群抽样方法随机抽取18周岁及以上的人群10073名,以改编后的一般健康问卷12项（GHQ-12）为筛选工具,以美国精神障碍诊断与统计手册第四版（DSM-IV）轴I障碍定式临床检查患者版（SCID-I/P）为调查的诊断工具。结果重性抑郁障碍的抑郁心境、失眠、疲倦或精力缺乏、兴趣或愉快感缺乏、思考力降低、体重减轻或食欲下降、无价值感、自己死亡的想法、精神运动性激越的出现频率较高;在抑郁发作类型、季节特征、既往发作缓解程度、目前类型、症状严重程度、首次发作年龄及反复发作间歇期的性别比较均无统计学差异。结论重性抑郁障碍各种临床症状的出现频率不同,性别对重性抑郁障碍临床特征的影响有待进一步研究。     

Autobiographical memory specificity and the course of major depressive disorder

This study examined the stability of autobiographical memory dysfunction (i.e., difficulties in retrieving specific memories) during the course of major depressive disorder, its relation to early adverse experiences, and its influence on the course of depressive disorder. Using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), specificity of autobiographical memory was assessed in 25 subjects with a current depressive disorder at baseline, and at 3 and 7 months follow-up. Also, information about self-reported childhood traumatization, and demographic and clinical variables was obtained. Autobiographical memory performance was relatively stable over time despite clinical improvement in the sample. It was not related to depression severity at baseline, while higher levels of childhood traumatization were correlated with more specific memory performance to negative cue words at baseline, but not during follow-up. Specific autobiographical responses to negative cue words predicted a better prognosis, whereas specific responses to positive cue words were not related to prognosis. Autobiographical memory dysfunction in depression appears to be stable over time, is related to short-term prognosis in depression, and may act as a vulnerability factor that influences the long-term course of depressive disorders.     

Gender differences in the clinical features of unipolar major depressive disorder

Gender differences in the presence or absence and the severity of forty-seven clinician-rated features of depression were examined, controlling for the sex of the rater. Subjects consisted of 498 moderately to severely depressed patients coming for treatment and diagnosed as suffering from nonpsychotic, unipolar major depressive disorder. Significant differences were found only for increased appetite and weight. No differences were observed in endogenous symptoms, global severity of depression, or impairment in functioning. The results indicate that, although the rate of major depressive disorder is greater in women, its symptomatology is relatively homogeneous with regard to gender.     

Gender differences in major depressive disorder in a Hungarian community survey

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in males and females in a sample of the Hungarian adult population. METHOD: 2953 randomly selected subjects between 18 and 64 years old were interviewed using the Hungarian version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS), which generated DSM-III-R diagnoses. RESULTS: The lifetime and period prevalences of MDD were more than twice as high in women than in men. The gender difference appeared in early adolescence and continued up until the age of 50. An increased risk for anxiety disorders was found in patients with MDD, irrespective of gender, and in the majority of cases (65%) the anxiety symptoms preceded the onset of MDD. Depressed women tended to have more symptoms and a more marked tendency for recurrence than men. The preponderance of females was twice as high in MDD with comorbid anxiety than in MDD without it, in spite of the fact that the likelihood of the coexistence of MDD and anxiety disorders did not differ by gender. CONCLUSION: The higher MDD prevalence rate in women might be the consequence of a higher rate of pre-existing anxiety disorder(s).     

Psychosocial disability during the long-term course of unipolar major depressive disorder

BACKGROUND: The goal of this study was to investigate psychosocial disability in relation to depressive symptom severity during the long-term course of unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD). METHODS: Monthly ratings of impairment in major life functions and social relationships were obtained during an average of 10 years' systematic follow-up of 371 patients with unipolar MDD in the National Institute of Mental Health Collaborative Depression Study. Random regression models were used to examine variations in psychosocial functioning associated with 3 levels of depressive symptom severity and the asymptomatic status. RESULTS: A progressive gradient of psychosocial impairment was associated with a parallel gradient in the level of depressive symptom severity, which ranges from asymptomatic to subthreshold depressive symptoms to symptoms at the minor depression/dysthymia level to symptoms at the MDD level. Significant increases in disability occurred with each stepwise increment in depressive symptom severity. CONCLUSIONS: During the long-term course, disability is pervasive and chronic but disappears when patients become asymptomatic. Depressive symptoms at levels of subthreshold depressive symptoms, minor depression/ dysthymia, and MDD represent a continuum of depressive symptom severity in unipolar MDD, each level of which is associated with a significant stepwise increment in psychosocial disability.     

Effect of age at onset on the course of major depressive disorder

OBJECTIVE: This report assesses whether age at onset defines a specific subgroup of major depressive disorder in 4,041 participants who entered the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study. METHOD: The study enrolled outpatients 18-75 years of age with nonpsychotic major depressive disorder from both primary care and psychiatric care practices. At study entry, participants estimated the age at which they experienced the onset of their first major depressive episode. This report divides the population into five age-at-onset groups: childhood onset (ages <12), adolescent onset (ages 12-17), early adult onset (ages 18-44), middle adult onset (ages 45-59), and late adult onset (ages > or =60). RESULTS: No group clearly stood out as distinct from the others. Rather, the authors observed an apparent gradient, with earlier ages at onset associated with never being married, more impaired social and occupational function, poorer quality of life, greater medical and psychiatric comorbidity, a more negative view of life and the self, more lifetime depressive episodes and suicide attempts, and greater symptom severity and suicidal ideation in the index episode compared to those with later ages at onset of major depressive disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Although age at onset does not define distinct depressive subgroups, earlier onset is associated with multiple indicators of greater illness burden across a wide range of indicators. Age of onset was not associated with a difference in treatment response to the initial trial of citalopram.     

Separation anxiety and panic disorder in clinically referred youth

This study examined whether youngsters with separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and panic disorder (PD) had experienced more separation-related events than youngsters with SAD (without comorbid PD). We also examined whether age of onset of SAD and comorbidity with other psychological disorders was related to the occurrence of PD. We compared youngsters who were diagnosed with SAD and PD (N=31) with youngsters who were diagnosed with SAD without comorbid PD (N=63) for the number of separation-related events, severity of psychopathology, and parent and child CBCL ratings, age of onset of SAD, and the number of comorbid diagnoses. The findings indicate that youngsters with SAD and PD had a later age of onset of SAD and more extensive psychopathology and functional impairment than youngsters with SAD (without comorbid PD). Contrary to hypothesis, there were no differences between the groups in the occurrence or number of separation-related events.     

脑影像学对重度抑郁障碍预后预测的研究进展

脑结构、功能磁共振成像作为预测精神疾病疗效和预后的生物学指标正越来越多地在重度抑郁障碍中得到广泛应用。本文主要对近年来结构和功能磁共振成像在重度抑郁障碍治疗前后脑结构、功能的影像学变化以及在预测预后等方面进行综述。     

Generalized anxiety disorder in late life: lifetime course and comorbidity with major depressive disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in elderly persons is highly prevalent, but little is known about its course, age at onset, and relationship to comorbid major depressive disorder (MDD). The authors assessed the course and comorbidity of late-life GAD and MDD. METHODS: Authors assessed elderly subjects in anxiety or depression intervention studies who had a lifetime history of GAD, with current MDD (N=57) or without (N=46). Subjects' lifetime course of illness was charted retrospectively. RESULTS: The 103 subjects had a mean age of 74.1 years, and a mean age at onset of GAD of 48.8 years; 46% were late-onset. GAD episodes were chronic, and 36% were longer than 10 years. Of the comorbid GAD-MDD patients, most had different times of onset and/or offset of the disorders; typically, GAD preceded MDD. CONCLUSIONS: Elderly subjects with GAD tended to have chronic symptoms lasting years-to-decades, without interruption, and many have late onset. Elderly persons with lifetime GAD and MDD tend to have different onset and offset of the two disorders. Findings characterize late-life GAD as a chronic disorder distinct from MDD.     

Driving brain state transitions in major depressive disorder through external stimulation

Major depressive disorder (MDD) as a dysfunction of neural circuits and brain networks has been established in modern neuroimaging sciences. However, the brain state transitions between MDD and health through external stimulation remain unclear, which limits translation to clinical contexts and demonstrable clinical utility. We propose a framework of the large‐scale whole‐brain network model for MDD linking the underlying anatomical connectivity with functional dynamics obtained from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Then, we further explored the optimal brain regions to promote the transition of brain states between MDD and health through external stimulation of the model. Based on the whole‐brain model successfully fitting the brain state space in MDD and the health, we demonstrated that the transition from MDD to health is achieved by the excitatory activation of the limbic system and from health to MDD by the inhibitory stimulation of the reward circuit. Our finding provides novel biophysical evidence for the neural mechanism of MDD and its recovery and allows the discovery of new stimulation targets for MDD recovery.     

Subcortical shape alterations in major depressive disorder: Findings from the ENIGMA major depressive disorder working group

Alterations in regional subcortical brain volumes have been investigated as part of the efforts of an international consortium, ENIGMA, to identify reliable neural correlates of major depressive disorder (MDD). Given that subcortical structures are comprised of distinct subfields, we sought to build significantly from prior work by precisely mapping localized MDD-related differences in subcortical regions using shape analysis. In this meta-analysis of subcortical shape from the ENIGMA-MDD working group, we compared 1,781 patients with MDD and 2,953 healthy controls (CTL) on individual measures of shape metrics (thickness and surface area) on the surface of seven bilateral subcortical structures: nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate, hippocampus, pallidum, putamen, and thalamus. Harmonized data processing and statistical analyses were conducted locally at each site, and findings were aggregated by meta-analysis. Relative to CTL, patients with adolescent-onset MDD (≤ 21 years) had lower thickness and surface area of the subiculum, cornu ammonis (CA) 1 of the hippocampus and basolateral amygdala (Cohen's d = ?0.164 to ?0.180). Relative to first-episode MDD, recurrent MDD patients had lower thickness and surface area in the CA1 of the hippocampus and the basolateral amygdala (Cohen's d = ?0.173 to ?0.184). Our results suggest that previously reported MDD-associated volumetric differences may be localized to specific subfields of these structures that have been shown to be sensitive to the effects of stress, with important implications for mapping treatments to patients based on specific neural targets and key clinical features.     

The natural course and outcome of major depressive disorder in primary care: the PREDICT-NL study

Purpose  

To examine the natural course and outcome of major depressive disorder (MDD) in primary care over 39 months.     

May duration of untreated illness influence the long-term course of major depressive disorder?

The aim of this naturalistic study was to investigate the possible influence of the duration of untreated illness (DUI) on the long-term course of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). One hundred and thirteen patients with recurrent MDD, according to DSM-IV-TR criteria, followed up for 5 years, were selected, interviewed and their clinical charts were reviewed. The DUI was defined as the interval between the onset of the first depressive episode and the first adequate antidepressant treatment. The sample was divided into two groups according to the DUI: one group with a DUI12 months (n=38). The main demographic and clinical course variables were compared between the two groups using Student's t-tests or chi-square tests. Patients with a longer DUI showed an earlier age at onset (t=2.82, p=0.006) and a longer duration of illness (t=3.20, p=0.002) compared to patients with a shorter DUI. In addition, the total number of depressive episodes occurring before the first antidepressant treatment was higher in the group with a longer DUI (t=-2.223, p<0.03). Even though limited by the retrospective nature of the study, these preliminary findings would suggest that a longer DUI may negatively influence the course of MDD. Larger prospective studies are warranted to further investigate the role of the DUI within MDD.