Personality traits and response to desipramine

We attempted to prospectively examine the effects of personality traits in 68 acutely depressed patients treated with desipramine over 4-5 weeks to assess whether the presence or absence of these traits played a role in response to antidepressant treatment. Overall the 39 responders had statistically significantly lower cluster III personality trait scores than non-responders, and a trend toward lower cluster I and cluster II scores. We then followed the 39 desipramine responders for up to 6 months on the dose to which they responded in accordance with standard clinical practice. Overall 23 of the 39 sustained their initial improvement, with eight relapsing and eight dropping out between 5 weeks and 6 months. When comparing these three groups with the 29 initial non-responders, those who sustained the 6-month response had statistically significantly lower cluster II, cluster III, and total personality scores than initial responders who relapsed, initial responders who dropped out and did not complete 6 months of treatment, and initial non-responders.