To determine the extent to which depression complicates Parkinson's disease (PD), the authors analyzed the literature on depression in PD in order to report on its prevalence, clinical manifestations, and treatment. By means of MEDLINE literature searches, the analysis focused on 45 PD depression studies conducted from 1922 through 1998. The results indicate that the prevalence of depression is 31% for all PD patients. The clinical manifestations of PD depression include apathy, psychomotor retardation, memory impairment, pessimism, irrationality, and suicidal ideation without suicidal behavior. PD depression is effectively treated with a variety of antidepressants, most commonly at present the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Anecdotal evidence supports the use of sertraline to treat PD depression.

Objective. To examine the level of anxiety experienced by individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Methods. Data from 2 previous studies were used to compare the level of anxiety (measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) in the following 4 subgroups: a general RA sample, a general osteoarthritis sample, a sample with both RA and major depression, and a normative sample of age-equivalent, working adults. Canonical correlations were used to examine associations between measures of anxiety and measures of both stress and depression. The relationship between anxiety and duration of RA was also explored. Results. The general RA sample had state anxiety levels that were comparable to the normative sample, although trait anxiety levels were significantly higher (P < 0.001). In addition, individuals with RA who also met criteria for depression exhibited significantly higher levels of both state anxiety (P < 0.0001) and trait anxiety (P < 0.0001) than was observed in the normative sample. Canonical correlations revealed that measures of anxiety were correlated with both measures of depression (r ‫؍‬ 0.83) and measures of stress (r ‫؍‬ 0.50). Anxiety was not found to be significantly related to RA disease duration. Conclusion. These findings demonstrated that individuals with RA, especially if concomitantly depressed, tend to exhibit levels of anxiety that are generally higher than a normative group of age-equivalent, working adults. The substantial canonical correlations between anxiety and both depression and stress revealed that anxiety shares variance with these more frequently studied variables in RA. However, anxiety was not found to be related to RA disease duration.

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Objective. To examine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral and pharmacologic treatment of depression in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. Subjects (n ‫؍‬ 54) with confirmed diagnoses of both major depression and RA were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 1) cognitive-behavioral/pharmacologic group (CB-PHARM), 2) attention-control/pharmacologic group, or 3) pharmacologic control group. Measures of depression, psychosocial status, health status, pain, and disease activity were collected at baseline, posttreatment (10 weeks), 6-month followup, and 15-month followup. Data were analyzed to compare the treatment effectiveness of the groups; data also were aggregated to examine the effects of antidepressive medication over time. Lastly, a no-treatment control group was defined from a cohort of persons who declined participation. Results. Baseline comparisons on demographic and dependent measures revealed a need to assess covariates on age and education; baseline scores on dependent measures also were entered as covariates. Analyses of covariance revealed no statistically significant group differences at postintervention, 6-month followup, or 15-month followup, except higher state and trait anxiety scores for the CB-PHARM group at the 15-month followup. In the longitudinal analyses of the effects of antidepressive medication, significant improvement in psychological status and health status were found at posttreatment, 6-month followup, and 15-month followup, but no significant improvements were shown for pain or disease activity. In addition, the comparison of the aggregated pharmacologic group with a no-treatment group revealed a statistically significant benefit for the 3 groups that received the antidepressive medication. Conclusion. In persons with RA, cognitive-behavioral approaches to the management of depression were not found to be additive to antidepressant medication alone, but antidepressant intervention was superior to no treatment.

Objective. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D