Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2003 Jul;33(5):839-45.
doi: 10.1017/s0033291703007827.

Time to recurrence after recovery from major depressive episodes and its predictors

T Kanai  1 , H Takeuchi, T A Furukawa, R Yoshimura, T Imaizumi, T Kitamura, K Takahashi
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Time to recurrence after recovery from major depressive episodes and its predictors

T Kanai et al. Psychol Med. 2003 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Depression is a remitting but recurring disease. However, there is a paucity of prospectively recorded data on the course of depression after recovery.

Method: A multi-centre prospective serial follow-up study of an inception cohort of hitherto untreated unipolar major depression (N = 95) for 6 years. We report the time to recurrence after recovery from the index depressive episode and their predictors.

Results: The cumulative probability of remaining well without subthreshold symptoms was 57% (95% CI, 46 to 68%) at 1 year, 47% (95% CI, 36 to 58%) at 2 years and 35% (95% CI, 23 to 47%) at 5 years. The same without full relapse was 79% (95% CI, 70 to 88%) at 1 year, 70% (95% CI, 60 to 80%) at 2 years and 58% (95% CI, 46 to 70%) at 5 years. The median duration of well-interval from the end of the index episode to the beginning of the subthreshold episode was 19-0 months (95% CI, 2-4 to 35-7), and that to the end of the full episode was over 6 years. Residual symptoms at time of recovery predicted earlier recurrence.

Conclusions: The median length of the well-interval was much longer than previously reported in studies employing similar definitions but dealing with a more severe spectrum of patients. However, the sobering fact remains that less than half of the patients can expect to remain virtually symptom-free for 2 years or more after recovery from the depressive episode.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources