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Query: UMLS:C0011570 (depression)
 172,036 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This prospective population study attempted to investigate the effects of smoking, alcohol, and caffeine consumption and socioeconomic factors and psychosocial stress on birthweight. A consecutive series of 1860 white women booking for delivery at a district general hospital in inner London were asked to participate. 136 refused and 211 failed to complete the study for other reasons (relocation, abortion, subsequent refusal), leaving a sample of 1513. Women who spoke no English, booked after 24 weeks, had insulin-dependent diabetes, or had a multiple pregnancy were excluded. Data were obtained by research interviewers at booking (general health questionnaire, modified Paykel's interview, and Eysenck personality questionnaire), at 17, 28, and 36 weeks' gestation, and from the structured antenatal and obstetric record. Variables assessed included smoking, alcohol consumption, caffeine consumption, and over 40 indicators of socioeconomic status and psychosocial stress, including social class, tenure of accomodation, educational status, employment status, income, anxiety and depression, stressful life events, social stress, social support, personality, and attitudes to pregnancy. Birthweight was adjusted for gestation and for maternal height, parity, and baby's sex. Smoking was the single most important factor (5% reduction in corrected birthweight). Passive smoking was not significant (0.5% reduction). After smoking was controlled for, alcohol had an effect only in smokers and the effects of caffeine became significant. Only 4 of the socioeconomic and stress factors significantly reduced birthweight and these became nonsignificant after smoking was controlled for. Social and psychological factors have little or no direct effect on birthweight corrected for gestational age (fetal growth), and the main environmental cause of its variation in this population was smoking.
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PMID:Effects on birth weight of smoking, alcohol, caffeine, socioeconomic factors, and psychosocial stress. 249 59

This study assessed the role of psycho-social stress in the development of psychiatric disorder during pregnancy and after childbirth. The samples were a consecutive series of women admitted to a psychiatric Mother and Baby Unit with a depressive illness and a random sample of women who had recently given birth. Whereas prepartum-onset disturbances were found to be overwhelmingly stress-related, women with a postpartum onset of depression were considerably less likely to have experienced a recent stress event or difficulty before onset. The relative lack of psycho-social antecedents among women who became ill within 2-3 weeks of giving birth strengthens the argument that puerperal depression may have a distinct, possibly biological aetiology.
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PMID:Psycho-social stress and puerperal depression. 252 26

Recent studies suggest that the hypercortisolism and dexamathasone resistance of depression arise, at least in part, at the level of the brain, ie, cortisol-releasing factor (CRF) and/or other corticotropin-secretagogues are hypersecreted. This article suggests a similar cause of the hypercortisolism of social subordinance. Two troops of wild olive baboons, living freely in the Serengeti Ecosystem of East Africa, have been under long-term study. Consistently, in stable dominance hierachies, subordinate males are hypercortisolemic relative to dominant animals. Furthermore, hypercortisolemic males are dexamethasone resistant. There are no rank-related difference in cortisol clearance or adrenal sensitivity to corticotropin, suggesting a pituitary and/or neural locus of the hypercortisolism. Subordinate males were shown to secrete less corticotropin in response to a CRF-challenge than did dominant males. Following the logic used in similar studies with depressives, if subordinate males were hypercortisolemic despite decreased pituitary sensitivity to CRF, then this implies that the hyperactivity of the adrenocortical axis is driven at the level of the brain. Furthermore, subordinate males were hyporesponsive to CRF after administration of metyrapone, which blocks cortisol secretion and disinhibits the pituitary from feedback inhibition. Thus, the pituitary appears to have lost sensitivity to CRF itself in these low-ranking males. These observations are interpreted in light of behavioral data suggesting that these subordinate males are under sustained social stress.
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PMID:Hypercortisolism among socially subordinate wild baboons originates at the CNS level. 255 41

A group of 89 patients admitted to the Psychiatric Unit of a General Hospital, with diagnosis of depression according to ICD-9 criteria and randomly chosen were studied. 26 of them (29.2%) were resistant depressions and 63 (7.82%) responded to treatment. Both groups were composed retrospectively in order to analyse resistance or lack of response to a first treatment with tricyclic or tetracyclic antidepressants in effective dosages. We considered: the personality type; the associated somatic pathology; prolonged social stress; period of evolution of the disorder; previous treatments; type of disorder uni or bipolar; familial morbidity; diagnosis reconsideration; analysis of therapeutic compliance; side effects and intolerance. We observed a statistically significant difference with regard to prophylactic treatment (38.4% resistant versus 98.3% non-resistant, p less than 0.0001); a greater suspicion of psycho-organicity in the resistant group (p less than 0.05); a longer interval of time for the resistant group between the beginning of the disorder and the beginning of treatment in our service (F: 1.45, t: 2.58, p less than 0.01). The alternatives used with our patients are analysed and we propose schedules for tackling this kind of problem.
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PMID:[Refractory depression: therapeutic alternatives]. 280 Dec 64

A detailed physical and psychiatric assessment of 80 patients with definite or classical rheumatoid arthritis was performed using diagnostic criteria for psychiatric disorder appropriate for those with physical illness. Seventeen (21%) patients had depression or anxiety severe enough to warrant treatment. The presence of pychiatric disorders was not related to the duration of the arthritis nor to 11 other indicators of its severity with the exception of grip strength (p less than 0.002) and Fries Functional grade (p less than 0.005). It was significantly related to the presence of social stress (p less than 0.05) and lack of social support (p less than 0.005). Those with psychiatric symptoms scored higher on an illness behaviour scale, indicating that they perceived their illness as very severe. These also worried excessively about it and failed to be reassured by the doctor. Such illness behaviour was displayed by some patients who had severe arthritis but lacked social support. In others the complaints were unfounded because their arthritis was mild. They also experienced much social stress and lacked social support. We conclude that psychiatric illness occurs in rheumatoid arthritis with similar frequency to that of other general medical patients. It is principally related to social stress and lack of support rather than severity of arthritis, and may lead to abnormal illness behaviour. Since lack of social support appears of prime importance in determining disability, its assessment is essential for the rehabilitation of the disabled patient with RA.
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PMID:Psychiatric disorder and illness behaviour in rheumatoid arthritis. 317 24

Occurrence of pain was investigated in 73 non-psychotic psychiatric inpatients; 75% had been bothered by pain within the last 3 months and about half of these had pain every day. Pain was most frequent in patients with neurosis and personality disorder. The occurrence of pain was significantly associated with unskilled work, but was not related to experience of social stress. Patients with pain reported more anxiety and hostile feelings and had a higher degree of somatic anxiety and muscular tension, thus attaching importance to anxiety-induced muscle spasm as a pain-mediating mechanism. A specific relationship between pain and depression was not supported.
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PMID:Pain in non-psychotic psychiatric patients: life events, symptomatology and personality traits. 322 20

The prevalence of hallucinatory depression and symptoms and the social and health status of hallucinatory depressives were studied in a Finnish population aged 60 years or over. The prevalence was 2 per 1,000 for men, 3 per 1,000 for women and 2 per 1,000 for both sexes. Hallucinatory depressions represented 0.9% of all depressions both in men and women, and 7.7% of major depressions in men, 5.7% in women, and 6.3% in both sexes. The hallucinations included visual and hearing hallucinations. Delayed insomnia and depersonalisation were more severe in hallucinatory depressives than in nonhallucinatory major depressives, but initial insomnia was more severe in nonhallucinatory major depressives. Depersonalisation, paranoid symptoms and delayed insomnia were more severe in hallucinatory depressives than in all nonhallucinatory depressives, but initial insomnia was more severe in all nonhallucinatory depressives. The physical health and functional capacity of hallucinatory depressives were good, but they had suffered from social stress factors before the onset of depression. The results gave some evidence that hallucinatory depression in old age is not a clinical entity separate from other forms of major depression.
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PMID:Hallucinatory depression in the elderly: a community study. 326 72

Three experiments are reported in which expectancies about performance in stressful conditions by nondepressed and depressed nonclinical populations were examined. The first experiment was concerned with estimates of either errors or response rates made in advance, with regard to the likely competence level of a (hypothetical) person allegedly working in conditions of either loud noise, fatigue, sleep loss, social stress, or incentive. Nondepressed subjects as well as depressed subjects provided negative expectancies. The second experiment involved obtaining an estimate of personal competence in conditions where subjects were instructed that personal performance on the task would be required after the estimate had been provided. Nondepressed subjects differed from depressed subjects in that the estimates of the former were less negative in terms of the magnitude of the estimates provided. A third experiment was designed to see whether the negative expectancies about performance in stress exhibited both by nondepressed and by depressed subjects would be used in making allowances for the competence of a typist on the basis of a typescript allegedly produced under high noise conditions. An unexpected effect was that depressed subjects judged the typist more harshly and failed to make allowance for adverse working conditions in the way that nondepressed subjects did. The results are discussed in terms of the implications for understanding cognitive factors in depression.
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PMID:The perception of performance in stress: the utilisation of cognitive facts by nondepressed and depressed students. 383 90

Twenty-two (16%) of 134 lung cancer patients had symptoms of a major depressive illness at the time they first presented to hospital. This was a higher prevalence than that found in patients with non-malignant chest conditions, or in controls without serious disease. A past history of psychiatric illness, and the presence of metastatic disease, were the most significant correlates of depression. The depressive symptoms had often preceded the physical ones and apparently arisen in reaction to social stress.
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PMID:Depressive illness and lung cancer. I. Depression before diagnosis. 398 8

A 20 per cent prevalence of mild clinical depression was found in 120 women assessed at about six weeks postpartum. The strongest associated factor was occurrence of recent stressful life events. Previous history of psychiatric disorder, younger age, early postpartum blues, and a group of variables reflecting poor marital relationship and absence of social support were also notable. Poor marital support acted as a vulnerability factor, only producing an effect in presence of stressful life events. Previous psychiatric history produced a strong independent effect, both with and without life events. Postpartum blues were only associated with depression in the absence of life events, suggesting a small hormonal sub-group. Overall the findings indicate the importance of social stress in puerperal depression.
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PMID:Life events and social support in puerperal depression. 738 41


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