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Effect of somatic comorbidity on alleviation of depressive symptoms
H Viinamäki1, A Tanskanen, J Hintikka
1Department of Psychiatry, Kuopio University Hospital, Finland. heimo.viinamaki@kuh.fi
Objective:
The aim of this study was to investigate whether somatic comorbidity (SC) impedes recovery from depression.
Method:
The study design was naturalistic. Diagnosis of depression was confirmed by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID). Changes in the symptom scales for those patients with somatic comorbidity (n = 75) were compared with corresponding changes in depressive patients without somatic comorbidity (n = 41) in a 6-month follow up.
Results:
Measured on the Hamilton and Beck scales, recovery rates of those with SC was only slightly lower to that of the others. The difference was statistically significant only in relation to the Hamilton scale. Forty-four per cent of those with SC and 42% of the other patients recovered from their depression (BDI score < 10 on follow up). Logistic regression analysis showed no independent association between recovery and somatic comorbidity.
Conclusions:
Moderate somatic comorbidity has only a minor effect on recovery from depression.