Patterns of depressive illness. The compatibility of disparate points of view.

Abstract

The feelings and concerns checklist derived by Grinker et al was administered to 145 depressed patients in Australia. Factors similar to those produced in the original American study were derived and it was considered that the Chicago study had been replicated. Further analysis of the data allowed the patients to be separated in terms of the syndromes of endogenous and neurotic depression using the criterion employed by Kiloh and Garside in Newcastle, England. It is concluded that depressed patients in Britain, Australia, and the United States have similar complaints and feelings and concerns and that the apparent incompatibility between the conceptualization of depression by these authors may be a function of the view-point from which the data are regarded. The groupings used by Kiloh and Garside and by Grinker both appear to reflect meaningful aspects of depression.