Abstract
A study was conducted to examine the factor structure of a set of commonly employed depression-related measures and to determine whether higher-order composite variables based on factor loadings would be differentially related to changes in depression status. Five cognitive and two behaviorally oriented measures were administered to 66 hospitalized depressives at pretreatment, 4 to 8 weeks later at the end of an initial phase of pharmacological treatment, and at 2- to 4-month intervals during an 8-month follow-up period. A principal-components analysis performed on nine variables produced three interpretable factors that differed systematically with respect to amount of differentiation between responders and nonresponders, as well as magnitude of change associated with successful treatment. Analyses performed on individual measures to track maintainers versus relapsers across three time points likewise yielded results consistent with predictions based on factor membership.
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This research was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH37664. The authors would gratefully like to acknowledge Margo Hurwitz, Donna Richard, Michelle Thrush, and Abe Wolf for assistance in data preparation.
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Reno, R.M., Halaris, A.E. Dimensions of depression: A comparative longitudinal study. Cogn Ther Res 13, 549–563 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01176067
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01176067