Minor depression: risk profiles, functional disability, health care use and risk of developing major depression

Course of Depressive Symptoms Following a Workplace Injury: A 12-Month Follow-Up Update

“…A cutoff of 16 is most widely used, but has been criticized for being too low, leading to a high number of false positives and low PPV values [17,18,20,22]. Still, while workers in this study who scored above 16 may not have had clinical depression, we have shown that even subthreshold depressive symptoms are related to poorer RTW outcomes, a finding that is consistent with other research demonstrating a relationship between subthreshold depression and functional impairment [49][50][51]. Previous literature suggests that using a cutoff score of 19 may be more appropriate for chronic pain patients [21].…”

Subthreshold depression based on functional impairment better defined by symptom severity than by number of DSM-IV symptoms

“…Also, functional impairment may be the result of the environment interacting with depressive symptoms (Üstün and Kennedy, 2009). Nevertheless, the association between functional impairment and depression is strong even below clinical threshold, as found by multiple studies (Wells et al, 1989;Sadek and Bona, 2000;Cuijpers et al, 2004;Ormel et al, 2008). A second limitation may be that, although a considerable group of healthy controls was randomly included, a large part of the sample was selected for (the risk of) anxiety or depression.…”

“…To illustrate, major depressive disorder (MDD) is among the most impairing disorders in the world (Lépine, 2001), but impairment is not limited to full blown MDD alone. The presence of less than the five symptoms required for MDD has consistently been found to be associated with significant levels of impairment as well, indicating its clinical relevance (Wells et al, 1989;Sadek and Bona, 2000;Cuijpers et al, 2004;Ormel et al, 2008).…”

Fish consumption, not fatty acid status, is related to quality of life in a healthy population

“…Subclinical depressive symptoms not only significantly increase the risk of developing major depression [2,3], but are also associated with considerable functional impairment [2,4]. The negative impact of subclinical depressive symptoms on both physical and mental functioning is generally reflected in a reduction of quality of life [5,6].…”