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Psychotic features in major depression: Is mood congruence important?
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Psychotic features in major depression: Is mood congruence important?

William Coryell, Ming T Tsuang and James McDaniel
Journal of affective disorders, Vol.4(3), pp.227-236
1982
DOI: 10.1016/0165-0327(82)90007-6
PMID: 6215441

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Abstract

We studied outcome and family history in 203 patients with psychotic depression. Patients whose psychotic features were mood-incongruent were significantly younger and had a slightly poorer outcome. Morbid risks for affective disorder and schizophrenia among relatives distinguished these mood-incongruent patients from patients with non-psychotic depression but not from patients with schizophrenia. In contrast, depressive probands with mood-congruent psychotic features resembled probands with non-psychotic depression and differed significantly from schizophrenia probands in terms of family history. While depressed patients with mood-congruent psychotic features experienced poorer short-term outcome relative to nonpsychotic depressed patients, a 40-year follow-up has shown that these differences disappear over time. Moreover, these two groups are quite similar according to family history data. Both family history and short-term outcome data suggest that major depression with mood-incongruent psychotic features cannot be classified altogether with either effective disorders or schizophrenia. More definite conclusions must await the results of long-term outcome and family studies of these patients presently underway.

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