title: Depressive personality disorder: clinical implications.
abstract: Although the concept of a depressive personality has a long and rich tradition in psychiatry, it has only recently been included in any official nomenclature. Those afflicted with depressive personality have been subsumed under a variety of mood disorders and other personality disorders. This article presents criteria for depressive personality disorder that were developed for the DSM-IV Task Force. A framework for validating a personality disorder, including that of depressive personality disorder, is presented. Results of the DSM-IV Mood Disorders Field Trial relevant to this issue are reported in the article. Results show that DSM-IV depressive personality disorder identifies a group of patients whose diagnosis does not overlap substantially with major depression, dysthymia, or early-onset dysthymia; the patients have significant social and occupational morbidity. These results provide significant evidence to justify the validity of depressive personality disorder.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston 77555-0429.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Hirschfeld
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Holzer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015897:Comorbidity; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D009626:Terminology as Topic