This study examined relationships between depressive subtypes, clinical-behavioral characteristics, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) function in 132 hospitalized depressed patients. There were significant positive correlations between several pre- and postdexamethasone plasma cortisol measures and anxiety, psychomotor disturbance, distressed expression, and sleep disturbance. Few significant relationships were seen between illness severity and HPA function. Virtually no endocrine differences were seen between endogenous and nonendogenous subtypes or between psychotic and nonpsychotic subtypes. These results and the previous literature suggest a profile of depressed patients with HPA overactivation; they are likely to be anxious, to have sleep and psychomotor disturbances, to have lost weight in the current episode, and to be older.
The authors report results of an 8-week, open trial of desipramine in 42 patients with DSM-III-R dysthymia with a concurrent diagnosis of major depression ("double" depression) and 33 patients with dysthymia who had no other depressive diagnosis ("pure" dysthymia). Either complete or partial remission was achieved by 70% of the patients with "pure" dysthymia. This compared favorably with but was not significantly different from results in the "double" depression group.
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