Abstract
Recent efforts at measuring cognitions relevant to depression have yielded a number of measures. In the first part of this study a battery of cognitive assessment measures were contrasted using three subject groups (major depressed patients, nondepressed psychiatric, and nonpsychiatric hospital patients). The results strongly support the existence of a correlated set of cognitions specific to depression. Several measures of cognition during the depressive episode correlated uniformly with severity of depression, and for the most part scores of depressed subjects were significantly different from the two control groups. The second part of the study explored the stability of cognition in a sample of depressed inpatients. Using the battery of cognitive assessment methods, the results indicate marked stability of scores while the person remains depressed. With a sample of remitted patients, changes in cognition appeared for only a small number of measures. The results were seen as providing supportive evidence for the cognitive model of depression.
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This study was supported by a grant from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (Grant #OMHF 832-82/84). We acknowledge the assistance of Rebel Beard, Maria Mendes, and Hans Breiter in the data collection, E. McCririck in the manuscript production, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments.
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Dobson, K.S., Shaw, B.F. Cognitive assessment with major depressive disorders. Cogn Ther Res 10, 13–29 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173379
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173379