Recovery in Major Depressive Disorder

The Course of Depressive Illness in General Practice

“…Of the 476 followed-up patients, 308 (64.7%) were cured without relapse, 117 (24.6%) developed a chronic disorder, and 51 (10.7%) had an early relapse after initial improvement. The high rate of recovery without relapse observed in our study is not consistent with results reported from several other naturalistic studies (18)(19)(20)(21), which found a probability of recovery at about 50% within a single year. These discrepancies between studies can, to some extent, be attributed to methodological and population differences, especially the length of the follow-up periods and the type of populations studied (that is, inpatients or outpatients).…”

Speed of recovery from major depressive episodes in a community sample of married men and women.

“…We found no significant overall relation between prior history of dysthymia and the speed of episode recovery in the total sample and a negative relation in the subsample of respondents with episodes that lasted beyond 3 months. This pattern is inconsistent with two reports that documented that patients with a history of dysthymia return to their usual level of functioning more rapidly than patients with no history of dysthymia (Keller et al, 1983; Keller et al, 1982). It is likely that this inconsistency can be traced to imprecision in our retrospective method of dating episodes.…”

A comprehensive model of predictors of persistence and recurrence in adults with major depression: Results from a national 3-year prospective study

“…Our results extend previous findings (Grilo et al, 2005; Keller et al, 1982, 1992; Klein, Shankman, 2006; Sargeant et al, 1990; Skodol et al, 2011, 2011b; Spijker et al, 2010; Steinert et al, 2014) by showing that the effect of comorbidity or depression itself on the risk of persistence or recurrence of MDE is not uniquely related to one specific mental disorder or depression symptom, but rather related to the number and severity of mental disorders and depressive symptoms. Because effects of comorbid psychiatric disorders remained strong after taking into account treatment of MDE, our results highlight the need to develop interventions that can simultaneously target multiple psychiatric disorders to decrease the risk of MDE persistence and recurrence (Blanco et al, 2017; Bullis et al, 2014; Roy-Byrne et al, 2010; Sullivan et al, 2007).…”