Follow-up and family study of anxious depression

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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The failure of the concept of anxious depression to find its way into DSM-III-R led the authors to conclude that a further report on the occurrence of anxiety symptoms in depressed subjects is indicated. METHOD: The subjects were 327 consecutively evaluated inpatients and outpatients with primary unipolar depressive disorder at five university medical centers participating in the National Institute of Mental Health Collaborative Program on the Psychobiology of Depression-- Clinical Studies. The authors restricted their sample selection to patients with primary depressive disorder so that patients with other preexisting psychiatric disorders, especially anxiety disorders, would not contaminate the symptom picture, family studies, or follow-up. The examined six anxiety symptoms and derived a new anxiety summary score to show the effect of anxiety in depression on family data and 5-year outcome. RESULTS: Depressed subjects with higher ratings for anxiety took longer to recover. There was also a si...