The aims of the study were to examine the frequency of a family history of depression among 96 patients with subtypes of ICD-10 depression, their life event scores, and compare the factors of depression with other studies. Subjects were assessed using the PSE-9, 23-item HDRS, BPRS and life event schedule. Family history was significantly commoner for psychotic depression. There were no significant differences in life event scores. The HDRS factors – core depression, endogenous, insomnia and psychic anxiety – were similar to those of previous studies. Combining the HDRS and BPRS yielded factors that were more representative of the dimensions of depression. While family history distinguishes psychotic depression, life events are important with increasing age, but require interaction with predisposing factors. Although depression is heterogeneous, there are core clinical features which are stable across cultures and time. Family history is more associated with the severer forms of the disorder, and combining relevant questionnaires maybe more useful in research on symptom profiles.

The aims of the study were to examine: the frequency of the subtypes and symptoms of depression, the stability of symptoms in 3 months and to compare the data with previous studies. Ninety-six consecutive patients (31 males, 65 females) fulfilling ICD-10 criteria were assessed. Compared with the WHO study, the core symptoms of depression were similar; pathological guilt and suicidal behaviour were less prevalent, and psychoticism was more prevalent. Overall, 61.5% had severe depression, 64.6% had somatic syndrome, and subjects were in remission at follow-up. The results were similar to those of a report from the hospital 26 years earlier. The purported rarity of guilt, self-depreciation, suicide and psychotic symptoms should not imply rarity of severe depression among Africans; for these are not its commonest symptoms.

The objectives of the study were to assess the factors that would emerge from combining the ratings based on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Scale for Assessment of Negative Symptoms and ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for research, and examine the stability of these factors at the third month of treatment; to highlight the correlates of these factors, and to compare the factors yielded with those of previous reports. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation was performed on the ratings of 65 males and 37 females, aged 33.7 ± 8.4 years (SD), with a duration of illness of 7.3 ± 6.6 years. Five conceptually meaningful factors emerged, accounting for 61% of the variance. The first 2 factors (diminished expression or psychomotor poverty, and social dysfunction or disordered relating) are negative syndromes, followed by disorganization, catatonic and excitement syndromes. These factors did not endure at the third month. The disorganization syndrome was significantly correlated with duration of illness, while age was inversely correlated with the catatonic syndrome; however, the score on a measure of soft signs of neurological dysfunction was not significantly correlated with the negative syndromes. In spite of hallucinations and delusions not loading significantly on any factor, the individual factors were highly similar to those of previous studies. But the instability of the negative syndromes, coupled with the results of previous Nigerian short-term outcome studies, casts doubt on the validity of the concept of deficit schizophrenia in this and other treated noninstitutionalized schizophrenics in Nigeria.

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