Illness history: Not associated with remission during treatment of major depression in 515 mood disorder patients

Background: There is suggestive evidence that prior illness history may have little association with response to long-term treatment in bipolar disorder (BD) or recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD), but relationships of illness-history to treatment-response in acute episodes of depression require further testing. Methods: We tested for associations of selected measures of illness history with remission during treatment of an acute index episode of major depression in 515 mood-disorder patients (327 MDD, 188 BD), using bivariate and multivariate methods. Results: Remission of depression was more likely with lesser initial symptom-severity and bipolar diagnosis, but not related to years since illness-onset, previous depressions or episodes (based on counts, yearly rates, or %-of months ill), or other indices of illness-severity (hospitalization, co-morbidity, suicide attempt). Conclusions: Likelihood of response to standard treatments for acute major depressive episodes in MDD or BD appeared to be largely independent of prior illness-history. (c) 2015 Elsevier By. All rights reserved.