Cross cultural psychometric comparison of major depression in inpatients from Chile and Germany

Background: Depressive symptom and personality features of patients with mo od disorder are supposed to have a strong variability in cross cultural stu dies. The clinical profile, the outcome and the treatment response seem to be different across the world. Aim: To investigate the differences and simi larities of major depressive disorders in Chile and Germany. Material and m ethods: Sixty seven Chilean and German depressive inpatients, without comor bidity on axis I or II were studied. Diagnosis of depression was based on D SM IV and ICD 10 criteria for major depression. Symptomatology was assessed using the self reporting questionnaire (SRQ-20), the Symptom checklist-90- revisited (SCL 90-R), the Beck inventory for Depression (BDI), and the Hami lton scale for depression (HAM-D). Personality was assessed with the Munich Personality Scale. Results: Only the SRQ-20 shows significantly higher ten dency towards depression among Chilean patients. At the personality level, Chileans exhibited higher scores in extroversion, neuroticism, esoteric and isolating tendencies. Conclusions: These results help to understand differ ences and similarities between depressive syndrome across cultures. They su ggest that the relation between symptomatology, some personality traits and severe major depression has little variability across cultures.