title: Mood congruent and incongruent psychotic depressions: are they the same?
abstract: DSM-III and DSM-III-R instruct the clinician, if possible, to classify major depression with psychotic features into either the mood congruent (MC) or mood incongruent (MI) subtype. Patients hospitalized on a psychiatric unit for major depression with psychotic features were classified as predominantly MC or MI. The MC and MI groups did not differ significantly on a number of demographic or symptom severity variables. Thirteen (50%) MI patients experienced at least one MC symptom and 10 (71%) MC patients experienced at least one MI symptom. Overall, 25 (58%) of these patients experienced both MC and MI symptoms. This study demonstrates that subtyping psychotic depression into MC and MI subtypes is seldom an 'either-or' decision. Indeed, these results combined with findings from previous research suggests that there is no compelling scientific evidence for subclassifying psychotic depression into subtypes.
authors.affiliation: Veterans Administration Medical Center, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City.
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Burch
authors.forename: R F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Anton
authors.forename: W H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Carson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000341:Affective Disorders, Psychotic / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results