Adult outpatients with depression: worse quality of life than in other chronic medical diseases in Argentina

Current research into the impact of major depressive illness on society goe s beyond estimating its prevalence. complications or comorbidity patterns, to include research that seeks to establish how this disorder affects indiv iduals' daily functioning and well-being. However, it is unclear whether de pression affects such broadly defined quality of life (QOL) outcomes to a s imilar or an even greater extent than chronic physical illness. The present study assessed QOL in a sample of 48 ambulatory depressed patients who sou ght psychiatric assistance at a centre in La Plate, Argentina, during a 15- month period. All of them met DSM-IV criteria For current major depression, as diagnosed by clinicians. For the purposes of comparison. we also evalua ted the QOL of additional samples of persons who were healthy or who had ch ronic physical illness. QOL was assessed with the WHOQOL-100 a generic and transcultural instrument developed simultaneously in 15 centres, by the Wor ld Health Organization (WHO). Results indicated that QOL was significantly poorer in depressed persons than in tither healthy persons or individuals w ith other frequent chronic pathologies in Argentina. The impact of depressi on was also found to be related to the seriousness of the episode. We sugge st that it is important to include QOL assessments of patients with depress ive disorders when evaluating the course and progress of their treatment. S uch assessments can be used in health care decision making and resource all ocation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.