scholarly journals Having versus not having social interactions in patients diagnosed with depression or social phobia and controls

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0249765
Author(s):  
Jeanette Villanueva ◽  
Andrea H. Meyer ◽  
Thorsten Mikoteit ◽  
Jürgen Hoyer ◽  
Christian Imboden ◽  
...  

Humans need meaningful social interactions, but little is known about the consequences of not having them. We examined meaningful social interactions and the lack thereof in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) or social phobia (SP) and compared them to a control group (CG). Using event-sampling methodology, we sampled participants’ everyday social behavior 6 times per day for 1 week in participants’ natural environment. We investigated the quality and the proportion of meaningful social interactions (when they had meaningful social interactions) and degree of wishing for and avoidance of meaningful social interactions (when they did not have meaningful social interactions). Groups differed on the quality and avoidance of meaningful social interactions: Participants with MDD and SP reported perceiving their meaningful social interactions as lower quality (in terms of subjective meaningfulness) than the CG, with SP patients reporting even lower quality than the MDD patients. Further, both MDD and SP patients reported avoiding meaningful social interactions significantly more often than the CG. Although the proportion of meaningful social interactions was similar in all groups, the subjective quality of meaningful social interactions was perceived to be lower in MDD and SP patients. Future research might further identify what variables influenced the reinforcement of the MDD and SP patients so that they engaged in the same number of meaningful social interactions even though the quality of their meaningful social interactions was lower. Increasing awareness of what happens when patients do or do not have meaningful social interactions will help elucidate a potentially exacerbating or maintaining factor of the disorders.

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-736
Author(s):  
Alexander Joseph Steiner ◽  
Stephanie Marie Wright ◽  
Taylor Kuhn ◽  
Waguih William IsHak

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. s777-s777 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Kozhyna ◽  
V. Korostiy ◽  
S. Hmain ◽  
V. Mykhaylov

IntroductionAccording to studies done in recent years regarding the treatment of patients with melancholy in major depressive disorder, a shift of interest from studies evaluating the effectiveness of therapy to the study of remission is seen. Despite significant progress in the development of pharmacotherapy of depressive disorders, difficulty in achieving rapid reduction in depressive symptoms and stable remission in patients with melancholic depression necessitated the search for new approaches to the treatment of this pathology.AimsEvaluating the effectiveness of art therapy in treatment in patients with melancholy in major depressive disorder on the quality of remission.MethodsThe study involved 135 patients – 60 male and 75 female patients aged from 18 to 30 years old. The main group of patients apart the combined treatment also participated in group art therapy with the use of drawing techniques, while the control group – statutory standard therapy.ResultsThe results of the use of art therapy in complex treatment in patients with major depressive disorder is detected primarily in reducing of the level of anxiety at the early stages of treatment (60% of patients have noticed decreasing of melancholic state), as well as improving the quality of life in remission period.ConclusionThese results support the use of art therapy in treatment in patients with melancholy in major depressive disorder during period of active treatment, and after achieving clinical remission contributes to achieving and maintaining high-quality and stable remission with full restoration of quality of life and social functioning.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Morton ◽  
Venkat Bhat ◽  
Peter Giacobbe ◽  
Wendy Lou ◽  
Erin E. Michalak ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Many individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) do not respond to initial antidepressant monotherapy. Adjunctive aripiprazole is recommended for treatment non-response; however, the impacts on quality of life (QoL) for individuals who receive this second-line treatment strategy have not been described. Methods We evaluated secondary QoL outcomes in patients with MDD (n=179). After 8 weeks of escitalopram, non-responders (<50% decrease in clinician-rated depression) were treated with adjunctive aripiprazole for 8 weeks (n=97); responders continued escitalopram (n=82). A repeated-measures ANOVA evaluated change in Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Short Form scores. QoL was described relative to normative benchmarks. Results Escitalopram responders experienced the most QoL improvements in the first treatment phase. For non-responders, QoL improved with a large effect during adjunctive aripiprazole treatment. At the endpoint, 47% of patients achieving symptomatic remission still had impaired QoL. Discussion Individuals who were treated with adjunctive aripiprazole after non-response to escitalopram experienced improved QoL, but a substantial degree of QoL impairment persisted. Since QoL deficits may predict MDD recurrence, attention to ways to support this outcome is required.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 697-712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Mencacci ◽  
Eugenio Aguglia ◽  
Giovanni Biggio ◽  
Lodovico Cappellari ◽  
Guido Di Sciascio ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Mohagheghi ◽  
Asghar Arfaie ◽  
Shahrokh Amiri ◽  
Masoud Nouri ◽  
Salman Abdi ◽  
...  

Introduction and Objective. Despite the effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in treating major depressive disorder (MDD), its cognitive side effects make it less popular. This study investigated the impact of liothyronine on ECT-induced memory deficit in patients with MDD.Methodology. This is a double-blind clinical trial, in which 60 patients with MDD who were referred for ECT were selected. The diagnosis was based on the criteria of DSM-IV-TR. Patients were divided randomly into two groups to receive either liothyronine (50 mcg every morning) or placebo. After the assessment with Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) before first session of ECT, posttests were repeated again, two months after the completion of ECT.Findings. By controlling the pretest scores, the mean scores of the experimental group were higher than the control group in delayed recall, verbal memory, visual memory, general memory, and attention/concentration scales (P<0.05).Conclusion. Liothyronine may prevent ECT-induced memory impairment in patients with MDD. This study has been registered in IRCT underIRCT201401122660N2.


QJM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 114 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mostafa S ElShaarawi ◽  
Ayman A Gaafar ◽  
Hisham S. Saad Eldin ◽  
Randa H Ali

Abstract Background Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common psychiatric disorder that affects nearly 11.1-14.6 % of the population in their lifetime. Pathophysiology and brain imaging findings show that degenerative and inflammatory processes may play a role. Meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies in MDD demonstrated significant gray matter loss. From anatomical and embryological perspectives, the retina can be considered a unique extension of the brain and is able to reflect axonal histopathology. Being unmyelinated, it can provide insight into the pathophysiological processes of diseases with a neurodegenerative element. Aim to compare retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) parameters in a group of MDD patients with a healthy control group and to correlate OCT parameters with pattern electroretinography (PERG) parameters. Method a controlled cross sectional study was conducted on 30 MDD patients and 28 age and sex matched controls. Both groups had a full ophthalmological examination, OCT imaging and 7 patients and 11 controls have PERG recorded. Results Thinning of the superior retinal nerve fiber layer, thinning of most of the ganglion cell inner plexiform (GCIP) layer, thinning of most of the macular thickness and thinning of macular volume in both eyes were detected. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the left GCIP layer and the amplitude of the N95 wave. Also a statistically significant negative correlation existed between MDD duration in years with the left eye's average volume of the outer ring of the macula. Conclusion Significant retinal changes were detected by OCT in MDD patients supporting the theory of neurodegeneration as a pathophysiology of MDD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaqi Zhou ◽  
Miao Li ◽  
Xueying Wang ◽  
Yuwen He ◽  
Yan Xia ◽  
...  

Pharmacotherapy is the most common treatment for schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BD), and major depressive disorder (MDD). Pharmacogenetic studies have achieved results with limited clinical utility. DNA methylation (DNAm), an epigenetic modification, has been proposed to be involved in both the pathology and drug treatment of these disorders. Emerging data indicates that DNAm could be used as a predictor of drug response for psychiatric disorders. In this study, we performed a systematic review to evaluate the reproducibility of published changes of drug response-related DNAm in SCZ, BD and MDD. A total of 37 publications were included. Since the studies involved patients of different treatment stages, we partitioned them into three groups based on their primary focuses: (1) medication-induced DNAm changes (n = 8); (2) the relationship between DNAm and clinical improvement (n = 24); and (3) comparison of DNAm status across different medications (n = 14). We found that only BDNF was consistent with the DNAm changes detected in four independent studies for MDD. It was positively correlated with clinical improvement in MDD. To develop better predictive DNAm factors for drug response, we also discussed future research strategies, including experimental, analytical procedures and statistical criteria. Our review shows promising possibilities for using BDNF DNAm as a predictor of antidepressant treatment response for MDD, while more pharmacoepigenetic studies are needed for treatments of various diseases. Future research should take advantage of a system-wide analysis with a strict and standard analytical procedure.


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