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Quality of Life and Major Depression

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Book cover Quality of Life Impairment in Schizophrenia, Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

Major depression (MD) is a public health problem that is associated with grave consequences in terms of excessive mortality, disability, and secondary morbidity. Indeed, it ranked fourth in 1990 and could rise to second by 2020 in terms of the overall burden of all diseases worldwide. Therefore, it is now clear that current research on the health impact of depression should go beyond estimating its prevalence, symptoms severity, and complications to include studies that seek to establish how it influences the quality of life (QOL) of the affected individuals. In the present chapter we will outline how measures of QOL may reveal differences between patients with depression and control groups, be sensitive to change in status during treatment, have predictive value for outcome measures and provide additional information about timelines for improvement in psychosocial functioning, which may occur at a different rate than changes in other depressive symptoms. More specifically, we will summarize recent investigations that have generally shown that: (1) depressed patients have QOL deficits that are directly attributable to the mood disturbance, (2) the degree of the decrement in QOL is proportional to the severity of depressive symptoms, (3) the negative relation between depression and QOL is as great as (or worse than) that observed in chronic medical disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, and (4) the adequate treatment of depression is usually associated with a significant improvement in the QOL of patients. Finally, we will discuss future perspectives involved in the evaluation of QOL in populations of depressed subjects

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Depressive Disorders Program, Douglas Hospital Research Centre, FBC Pavilion, Rm. F-3116-B, 6875 LaSalle Blvd., Montreal, Quebec,H4H 1R3, Canada

    Marcelo T. Berlim

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine; Head, Mood Disorders Program Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Marcelo P.A. Fleck

Authors
  1. Marcelo T. Berlim
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  2. Marcelo P.A. Fleck
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa

    Michael S. Ritsner

  2. Director, Acute Department, Sha’ar Menashe, Mental Health Center, Israel

    Michael S. Ritsner

  3. Associate Editor, Quality of Life Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Michael S. Ritsner

  4. Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medical Science University of Toronto Chief of Psychiatry, Humber River Regional Hospital, Toronto

    A. George Awad

  5. Ontario President, The International Society of CNS, Clinical Trials and Methodology, Canada

    A. George Awad

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Berlim, M.T., Fleck, M.P. (2007). Quality of Life and Major Depression. In: Ritsner, M.S., Awad, A.G. (eds) Quality of Life Impairment in Schizophrenia, Mood and Anxiety Disorders. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5779-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5779-3_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-5777-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-5779-3

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