Anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, and observed changes in psychomotor performance are frequent psychopathological phenomena in major depression with possible common neurobiological mechanisms. Interest, pleasure and reactivity to pleasurable stimuli contribute to movement generation and observable behaviour. Therefore the relationship between anhedonia and psychomotor retardation was studied in 48 depressed patients. Subjectively experienced anhedonia correlated with self-rated but not with observer-rated global severity of depression. There was a significant correlation between anhedonia and psychomotor retardation assessed with the Widöcher Retardation Scale. The results suggest the existence of an empirical relationship between reduced ability to experience pleasure and observable psychomotor retardation in depression. Specific measures of psychomotor phenomena may provide further insights into the relationship between observable behaviour and self-experienced symptoms in depression.
The Snaith-Hamilton-Pleasure-Scale (SHAPS), introduced in English in 1995, assesses self-reported anhedonia in psychiatric patients. It has proven psychometric properties and advantages in applicability compared to other instruments assessing anhedonia. This study presents results of a systematic transcultural protocol translating the SHAPS into German (SHAPS-D). Quality of translation was confirmed on the one hand by bilingual reviewers with regard to equivalence in content and tone. On the other hand stable results were found in a test-retest-design crossing the English and German version with bilingual persons. SHAPS-D was obtained from schizophrenic (n = 50) and depressive (n = 33) patients and from healthy controls (n = 67). Results on applicability, internal consistency and relationship to depression, subjective quality of life, well-being as well as psychopathology indicate that the SHAPS-D is a useful and promising instrument in assessing anhedonia.
Objective: To determine the presence of depressive symptoms and major depressive disorders in an epidemiological sample of elderly community residents. The influence of cognitive decline on the performance of instruments screening for depression was additionally examined. Methods: 287 subjects out of the general population aged 60-99 years were personally interviewed with standardized diagnostic tools and completed both the short version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D). The perfomance of the questionnaires was assessed by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis. Results: Using strict diagnostic criteria, the prevalence of major depressive disorders was 3.5%. Single depressive symptoms were far more prevalent. The presence of cognitive decline reduced the specificity of the CES-D, whereas the performance of the GHQ-12 remained unaffected. Conclusions: The study revealed a discrepancy between the prevalence of major depressive disorders and single depressive symptoms in a sample of older community residents. Special attention should be paid to the presence of cognitive decline when screening for depression in the elderly. Cognitive decline may affect the results of screening instruments and lead to erroneous prevalence rates.
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