Post-psychotic depression in schizophrenia

Abstract

Post-psychotic depression (PPD) is defined as the development of depression during the phase of remission of schizophrenia. Two groups of DSM-III-R schizophrenics, one with PPD and the other without PPD (30 subjects in each group) were compared. Significantly more patients in PPD group belonged to nuclear families, had longer duration of psychotic phase of the illness, were hospitalised more frequently and had more sadness and anxiety-somatisation during florid illness phase. The PPD group also had more past history of depression. Although PPD patients had better premorbid personal-social adjustment in comparison with non-PPD group, they perceived themselves to be lacking in social support and had experienced more stressful life events. For patients in the PPD group, stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed age of onset, sadness during florid psychotic state, premorbid adjustment, social support and life events as significant determinants of severity of depression in the post-psychotic phase.

Post-Psychotic Depression: An Updated Review of the Term and Clinical Implications

“…Twenty-two works were excluded because they were only focused on treatment or specific implications of PPD, such as suicide risk. Nineteen studies that met the inclusion criteria were finally selected [2,20,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]: Das and Kapur [22], Berrios and Bulbena [23], Becker [24], Leff et al [35], Potik [36], Kjelby et al [37], and Moritz et al [38].…”

Progressive symptom-associated prefrontal volume loss occurs in first-episode schizophrenia but not in affective psychosis

“…Consistent with our anxious-depression association, an MRS study reported that right frontal metabolic abnormalities were associated with anxious-depression BPRS factor severity in schizophrenia (Deicken et al 1994). Clinically, post-psychotic depression (Chintalapudi et al 1993) often appears after the acute psychotic state in schizophrenia, and thus we speculate that post-acute depressive symptoms may have been reflected in our anxious-depression findings. Our findings regarding conceptual disorganization appear to be congruent with previous studies, and add an important longitudinal dimension.…”

Postpsychotic depression in schizophrenia patients

“…In two patient series [17,35], PPD was found to be rare. Chintalapudi et al [36] found PPD patients to differ on account of increased severity of illness during the psychotic phase. Except in these recent studies, PPD was generally not defined by the presence of major depression, as stipulated by DSM-IV.…”

“…A comparison of 30 schizophrenia patients with PPD and 30 patients without PPD [36] in India revealed that PPD patients, among other social characteristics, experienced a more severe course of illness with more florid psychotic and depressive symptoms and higher number of hospitalizations. Huppert et al [37] examined 63 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, who were stabilized after an acute psychotic episode, and found that depression and anxiety, rather than positive and negative symptoms, were most correlated with impairment in quality of life.…”