Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ANADOLU PSIKIYATRI DERGISI-ANATOLIAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, cilt.10, sa.1, ss.11-17, 2009 (SCI-Expanded)
Objective: Evidence suggests that anxiety is one of the most prevalent symptoms in clinical depression and that assessing and treating severe, persistent anxiety are of great importance in the successful treatment of depression. When considering anxious depression term, it should be recognized that patients can manifest symptoms of depression and symptoms of anxiety in three separate ways; as comorbid depression and anxiety, as depression with subthreshold anxiety, and as subthreshold depression with subthreshold anxiety. The nature of the link between depression and anxiety remains uncertain; however, based on the evidence to date, the term anxious depression should be reserved for patients who meet diagnostic criteria for depression have subthreshold symptoms of an anxiety disorder. In depressed patients anxiety is a marker of severity, poor outcome, response to treatment, and suicide risk. Depressed patients who have higher ratings for anxiety are more severely ill, take longer to recover, and show a poor response to antidepressants. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical features of anxious depression. Methods: In anxious depressive group, 18 women and 10 men, within an age range of 18 and 60 (mean age 43.0 +/- 12.0 years) and in non-anxious depressive group 26 women and 9 men ( mean age 40.2 +/- 10.7 years) were included in this study. The study consisted of a total of 63 cases. All patients have been informed of the study and gave informed consent before participating into this study. Sociodemographic data form, Hamilton Depression Scale, Clinic Global Impression, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Suicide Thoughts Scale, Beck Depression Scale, State and Trait Anxiety Scale were administered to all subjects. Results: We found that anxious patients have higher depression severity, higher tendency for suicide, higher functional impairment rate and higher genetic loading for affective disorders than non-anxious depressive patients. Conclusion: In conclusion, anxious depression may be a different subtype of depression. While evaluating the depression patients, attention must be paid to anxiety symptoms and treatment plan should be made accordingly. (Anatolian Journal of Psychiatry 2009; 10: 11-17)