Progressing a spectrum model for defining non-melancholic depression.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To further develop a 'spectrum model' for non-melancholic disorders that encompasses underlying personality styles and clinical patterning. METHOD: In a sample of patients with non-melancholic depression, we studied four personality constructs influencing risk to depression, assessing associational strength and specificity between personality scores and symptom and coping response patterns. RESULTS: Analyses refined four personality dimensions (anxious worrying, irritability, social inhibition, and self-centredness) for testing the model. For all dimensions, personality style was specifically linked with a mirroring 'coping' response. Quantification of specific links allowed development of a spectrum model for the non-melancholic depressive disorders in which underpinning personality style showed some specific links with the clinical 'pattern' of symptoms and coping repertoires. CONCLUSION: The model has the capacity to assist clinical assessment, identify aetiological personality influences and allow specific treatment effects for the heterogeneous non-melancholic depressive disorders to be determined.