Analysis of depressive symptomatology in mood disorders

Depressive disorder is a polymorphic syndrome with a wide range of clinical manifestations. Most analyses of depressive symptomatology have been performed by ignoring psychotic symptoms, despite a substantial proportion of depressives presenting psychotic features. The purpose of this study was to include psychotic features in an analysis of depressive symptomatology. Six hundred sixty-nine inpatients affected by major depressive (n = 259) and bipolar (n = 410) disorder were rated for lifetime depressive symptoms using the Operational Criteria checklist for psychotic illness (OPCRIT) and included in a factorial analysis. Three factors were obtained: the first consisted of core depressive symptoms, the second comprised psychotic features, and the third comprised atypical symptoms. Separate analyses performed on major depressive and bipolar samples showed a similar factor structure, though there was some evidence of greater heterogeneity in the major depressive sample. Thus, when scored by the OPCRIT checklist, depressive symptomatology results were composed of core depressive symptoms, psychotic features, and atypical symptoms.