The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry
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Am J Geriatr Psychiatry · Mar 2007
The clinical significance of subsyndromal depression in older primary care patients.
Many seniors experience depressive symptoms not meeting standard diagnostic criteria. The authors sought to examine the clinical correlates of older primary care patients with "subsyndromal depression" (SSD), hypothesizing that SSD subjects have greater symptoms and functional impairment than nondepressed patients, but not as severe as those with major or minor depression, and to explore the characteristics of subjects captured by three different definitions of SSD used in prior published work. ⋯ Subsyndromal depression is common and associated with symptoms or impairments of clinical importance. Sole reliance on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition definitions of major or minor depression omit a substantial proportion of seniors with clinically significant depressive symptoms. Longitudinal study is needed to help clinicians identify those at greatest risk for poor outcomes, while researchers testing mechanistic models should include patients with SSD to determine whether they share pathogenetic underpinnings with more severe mood disorders.