title: Time to recovery of an inception cohort with hitherto untreated unipolar major depressive episodes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Generalisability of existing studies on the naturalistic history of major depression is undermined by overrepresentation of in-patients and tertiary care academic centres, inclusion of patients already on treatment and/or incomplete follow-up.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To report the time to recovery of an inception cohort of unipolar major depressive episodes.
  
  
  METHODS
  A multi-centre prospective follow-up study of patients with a mood disorder, who had been selected to be representative of the untreated first-visit patients at 23 psychiatric settings from all over Japan.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The median time to recovery of the index episode after treatment commencement was 3 months (95% CI 2.5-3.6): 26% of the cohort reached asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic status by 1 month, 63% by 3 months, 85% by 12 months and 88% by 24 months.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our estimate of the episode length was 25-50% shorter than estimates reported in the literature.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya City University Medical School, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya 467-8601, Japan. furukawa@med.nagoya-cu.ac.jp
authors: T A
authors: TA
authors: Furukawa
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Kitamura
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Takahashi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D020127:Recovery of Function; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018401:Sample Size; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents