THE MANY FACES OF DEPRESSION FOLLOWING SPOUSAL BEREAVEMENT

While it is becoming increasingly clear that mood disorders tend to be chronic, intermittent and/or recurrent conditions with different mani festations over time, little is known of the variability or course of mood disorders that are associated with severe psychosocial stress. Th is paper reports on the prevalence and course of major, minor, and sub syndromal depressions in 328 widows and widowers followed prospectivel y from 2 to 25 months following one of the most disruptive of all natu rally occurring stressors, spousal bereavement. The results are consis tent with the following conclusions: (1) past major depression (prior to the death) predicts an increased risk for major depression followin g bereavement; (2) membership in any of the unipolar subgroups, in tur n, predicts future depression throughout the unipolar depressive spect rum; (3) subsyndromal and minor depression stand between major depress ion, on the one hand, and no depression, on the other, in terms of the ir effects on overall adjustment to widowhood. Thus, the results suppo rt the validity of subsyndromal depression, and that the three subgrou ps (major, minor and subsyndromal depression) are pleiomorphic manifes tations of the same unipolar depression disorder. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sc ience B.V.