Outpatients with DSM-III-R versus DSM-IV melancholic depression

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B Lafer1, A A Nierenberg, J F Rosenbaum

  • 1Depression Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston 02114, USA.

Comprehensive Psychiatry
|January 1, 1996
PubMed

The purpose of this study was to compare outpatients who met DSM-III-R versus DSM-IV criteria for melancholia. Of 176 consecutive outpatients with unipolar depression, 40 (22.7%) met DSM-III-R criteria and 29 (16.5%) met DSM-IV criteria for melancholia. Patients with DSM-IV melancholia had higher mean scores on measurements of clinical severity as compared with those who qualified for a DSM-III-R diagnosis. These results suggest that the criteria for melancholia proposed in the DSM-IV are more restrictive and define a more severely depressed population than criteria in the DSM-III-R.

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