[The clinicopsychological and therapeutic significance in the depression-pain relationship]

The frequency of depression-pain association, gives the authors the opportunity of evaluating the actual pattern of managing pain according to its sensory-discriminatory, affective-emotional, cognitive and behavioral features. The neurophysiologic, affective and psychologic factors generally correlate in the induction and evolution of pain, being dependent on the individual reactivity environmental and socio-cultural relations. The efficacy of antidepressive drugs in the therapy of pain, explained by their action on the serotoninergic systems, advocates the clinical relationship depression-pain, but also their analgesic properties independent from the thymoanaleptic effect. The results of the clinical essays the authors have carried on some antidepressants (Imipramine, Amitryptyline, Mianserine, Maprotyline) evidenced their effect on the various forms of manifestation and localizations of pain complains. The amelioration of pain, certified by the use in dynamics of Hamilton's depression scale, occurs earlier than the improvement of depressive symptoms, thus attesting the analgesic properties of the antidepressants. The preservation and merging of these effects during the investigation interval, at the same time with an improvement in the depressive symptoms support the clinical correlation depression-pain, emphasizing the complex character of the algopathic syndrome, both somatically and mentally.