Comorbid anxiety disorders in late-life depression

✍ Scribed by Benoit H. Mulsant; Charles F. Reynolds III; M. Katherine Shear; Robert A. Sweet; Mark Miller

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 598 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1070-9797
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1522-7154(1996)2:5<242::aid-anxi6>3.0.co;2-o

✦ Synopsis

W e examined the prevalence and correlates of comorbid anxiety disorders in two groups of older depressed patients assessed at the University of Pittsburgh. A total of 336 older outpatients and inpatients with major depression were comprehensively evaluated with several instruments including the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and either the SADS-L or the SCID for DSM-III-R. These patients presented with major depression, associated with a wide range of finctional, cognitive, and medical impairment. One-third to one-half of them also presented with severe symptomatic anxiety. However, only a m a l l proportion (less than 5%) met diagnostic criteria for lifetime or current panic, obsessive-compulsive, or phobic disorders. At baseline, lifetime comorbid anxiety disorders were associated with a higher rate of alcoholism and higher symptomatic anxiety. Lifetime comorbid anxiety disorders did not aflect the rate of response of depression, but they were associated with a higher use of benzodiazepines and a 50% increase in the time outpatients needed to respond. These findings suggest that, even in psychiatric patients with major depression, the lifeFime prevalence of anxiety disorders is lower in late lge, but that it has important clinical and therapeutic implications.