PREDICTING THE SHORT-TERM OUTCOME OF FIRST EPISODES AND RECURRENCES OF CLINICAL DEPRESSION - A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY OF LIFE EVENTS, DIFFICULTIES, AND SOCIAL SUPPORT NETWORKS
Ts. Brugha et al., PREDICTING THE SHORT-TERM OUTCOME OF FIRST EPISODES AND RECURRENCES OF CLINICAL DEPRESSION - A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY OF LIFE EVENTS, DIFFICULTIES, AND SOCIAL SUPPORT NETWORKS, The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 58(7), 1997, pp. 298-306
Background: The study employed interview-based, investigator-rated mea
sures of symptoms and psychosocial adversity in a panel survey to pred
ict clinical course of depression. Method: 130 men and women attending
psychiatric hospitals for episodes of depressive disorders were inter
viewed with the Present State Examination and Life Events and Difficul
ties Schedule. After a mean 4-month interval, 119 were successfully re
assessed to test the hypothesis that recovery from clinical depression
is related to rates of life event stress and difficulties (termed psy
chosocial adversity) in the 6 to 12 months preceding initial evaluatio
n. Results: The severity (p <.01) and the duration (p <.01) of the epi
sode of depression up until the initial evaluation emerged as the only
significant background predictors of episode severity at later follow
-up. High levels of adversity were significantly (p <.05) related to a
poor clinical course, due to failure to recover from first-onset and
from second episodes. Recovery from all but first episodes was predict
ed by higher levels of social support rated at initial attendance. The
re was no evidence for the buffering of the harmful effects of adversi
ty by larger, more connected social support networks. Conclusion: Both
life event stress and support network characteristics are associated
with the short-term outcome of depressive episodes. The findings for s
ocial support in particular confirm growing evidence of the importance
of distinguishing between early and later relapsing episodes in causa
l investigations of depression. They reveal a progressive vulnerabilit
y to deficits in social circumstances with advancing course of disorde
r.