RECURRENTLY SITUATIONAL (REACTIVE) DEPRESSION - A STUDY OF COURSE, PHENOMENOLOGY AND FAMILIAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Probands with non-bipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) were grouped according to the consistency across episodes with which depression ap peared to arise from situational factors. Situational depression showe d significant diagnostic stability across the second and third recurre nces in a 10-year follow-up. The relatives of recurrently situational probands had higher neuroticism scores, higher lifetime rates of MDD a nd, when depressed, fewer endogenous symptoms than did the relatives o f non-situational probands. This study joins two others in finding an association between stress-related depression and high familial loadin gs for MDD. It also illustrates the value of diagnostic consistency ac ross episodes as a means of refining groups for the study of diagnosti c subtypes.