Anxiety and depression in affective disorders.

Abstract

Anxiety and depression were assessed with self-rating and observer-rating scales on admission and at discharge in 414 inpatients with endogenous or neurotic depression, anxiety neurosis or phobic disorders. The results were compared with findings in a reference group of 2,493 inpatients with a wide range of psychiatric disorders and a representative sample of the general population consisting of 1,952 persons. On admission the patients with anxiety neurosis and all of those with depressive disorders were significantly more anxious than the psychiatric reference group, whereas the phobic patients were only slightly more anxious. As was to be expected, the depressive groups showed the greatest depressivity, whereas the group with anxiety neurosis differed only slightly from the psychiatric reference group and the patients with phobias were actually below this reference group. During the treatment period there was a marked decrease in anxiety among the depressive patients but not in those with anxiety neurosis. The decrease in depressivity in the neurotic depressive patients was much less than in those with endogenous depression. Mixed anxiety depression was found with about the same frequency in both the neurotic and the endogenous depression groups. In general, anxiety and depressivity decreased over the treatment period, with persistence greatest in the anxiety neurosis group. On admission there was a more pronounced connection between anxiety and psychomotor agitation, on discharge between anxiety and psychomotor retardation.