[Verbal memory in patients with major depression]. / Das verbale Gedächtnis bei depressiven Patienten.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Patients with major depression commonly report memory deficits but studies on this topic have shown inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with major depression showed any differences in explicit verbal memory compared to healthy controls. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We used the California verbal learning test (CVLT) in order to compare the explicit verbal memory of 30 patients (21 women and 9 men) to a healthy control group (23 women and 10 men). RESULTS: The results showed no significant differences between verbal memory performance of patients with major depression and healthy controls. DISCUSSION: Verbal memory of depressive patients with antidepressant pharmacotherapy showed no significant differences compared to a healthy control group. It can be assumed that verbal memory in depression depends on variable parameters (e.g. age, severity and duration of depression and medication). More studies with a larger number of patients should be conducted to obtain reliable results about explicit verbal memory in depression.