Incomplete recovery among endogenously depressed patients: an ethological analysis

The paper reports on an ethological study comparing the behavior of hospitalized endogenously depressed (N = 11) and nonpsychiatrically ill control (N = 11) subjects hospitalized for somatic illnesses. All subjects participating in the study signed the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 for protection of human research subjects. Findings include: a) for the first hospital week behavioral differences between the two subject groups were highly significant with the most robust finding being the reduced frequency of social interaction among depressed subjects, b) an increase in communication among depressed subjects over the course of hospitalization but a decline of communication and an increase of self-activity among controls, and c) significant behavior profile differences between the two subject groups at the time of hospital discharge. The findings suggest that clinically remitted depressives are not fully recovered and socially capable when discharged from the hospital.