[Depression and self concept of patients with acute viral hepatitis]

As part of a complex multimodal study of the biological, psychological and social situation of patients with acute viral hepatitis, the specific hypothesis that patients with this disease appear to be especially depressive is examined. Two instruments were used to assess variables of depression: the Giessen-Test, a standardized personality questionnaire (Beckmann, Brähler, Richter, 1983) and the idiographic role-repertorygrid (Kelly 1955). Seeing that self-esteem and basic affective state of the hepatitis patients as a whole differed significantly from that of patients with depression, it does not seem justifiable to speak of "the depressive" hepatitis patient. On the contrary, differential investigation discriminates three subgroups of patients with depressed, "normal" and hypomanic mood states. Since the measures of depression used here are quite stable and thus rather "trait" than "state" variables and further, some patients even appear to be hypomanic, the observed depression is not, as discussed in the literature, regarded to be "psychoreactive".