SYMPTOM PATTERNS IN DEPRESSED PATIENTS AND DEPRESSED NORMALS

Abstract

The availability of outpatient psychiatric treatment and community social support services has brought increasing numbers of persons with mild depressive symptoms to the attention of clinicians. However, little attention has been directed toward the study of these mild disturbances. A comparison of symptom patterns and clinical course is presented between clinically depressed psychiatric outpatients being treated with amitriptyline (depressed patients) and a group of unhappy and sad women not under psychiatric treatment but coming to a career guidance center (normal depressives). These data support the finding that normal depression is similar in degree to the mood disturbances of clinical depression but is not similar in symptom patterns. Normal depression is characterized by a relative absence of somatic complaints and somatic anxiety. The short term clinical course of drug-treated depressed patients and vocationally assisted unhappy women is quite similar in that both groups improve. This improvement is characterized by a reduction of most symptoms and of the central core of depressed mood. Further research is needed on the frequency, patterns, and course of these mild depressive states to determine their clinical importance and treatment indications.