[Clinical characteristics of a representative group of hospitalized depressed patients].

Abstract

In order to define some principal clinical characteristics of the hospitalised depressives, the authors have examined a group of 100 depressed patients consecutively admitted to the Psychiatric University Clinic of Lausanne. The clinic is at the same time a sector hospital. The depressives constituted 21% of all hospitalised patients. The number of depressives admitted during the duration of the study (6 months) permitted to calculate a hospitalisation rate of 86 patients per 100 000 inhabitants and per year. The 100 patients were subclassified in patients with a short depressive reaction, neurotic depressives, and endogenous depressives. Each of the 3 subgroups had about the same size. A modified version of the ICD 9 was used for the diagnostic classification. As a whole, the patients showed serious psychiatric manifestations and the majority presented suicidal tendencies. Besides, there were found characteristics which are not considered to be associated with depressions in general: an elevated proportion of unmarried persons in the total group, psychopathic traits among the reactive and neurotic depressives, and a considerable proportion of parental loss in early childhood in these two last mentioned subgroups. Furthermore, an accumulation of chronic and therapy resistant cases was observed in the group of neurotic depressives. A third of the endogenous depressives had been resistant to the ambulatory antidepressive treatment; a part of these patients responded well to the treatment in the hospital.