An increase in joy after two weeks is more specific of later antidepressant response than a decrease in sadness

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Early positive emotion improvement predicts depression treatment response.
• Replication with simpler assessments is needed for clinical practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess if early improvement in positive emotions, specifically joy, predicts treatment response in depressed outpatients.
• To compare the predictive value of joy improvement versus sadness decrease.

Main Methods:

• 2049 adult outpatients with depression receiving agomelatine were assessed.
• Evaluations included clinician-rated scales and the Multidimensional Assessment of Thymic States (MATHYS) auto-questionnaire.
• MATHYS measured the frequency of emotions like joy and sadness at baseline, week 2, and week 6.

Main Results:

• Increased joy at week 2 was more specific (85.04%) and had a higher positive predictive value (70.55%) for treatment response than decreased sadness.
• Early improvement in joy better predicted clinical and functional remission compared to clinical response.
• Joy showed lower correlation with clinical severity than sadness at baseline.

Conclusions:

• Early improvement in joy during the first two weeks of treatment is a strong predictor of treatment response and remission.
• The frequency of joy is a valuable predictive measure for depression.
• Further study is warranted for including joy frequency in depression rating scales.