Deployment of attention in clinical depression during symptom remission.
The purpose of the current study was to investigate deployment of attention in clinically depressed patients during the process of symptom remission. Previous research indicates a non-depressed protective bias in attention whereas depressed individuals evidence no bias. A deployment-of-attention task based on negative, positive, and neutral adjectives was administered twice to 15 inpatients with major depression and 15 normal controls, at about 6 weeks apart. From test 1 to test 2, severity of patients' depressive symptoms improved significantly. Acutely depressed patients tended to show an attentional bias towards negative information whereas partially remitted patients manifested no attentional bias. Non-depressed individuals attended less to negative information than (acutely and partially remitted) depressed patients. Non-depressed participants but not depressed patients avoid negative information demonstrating a protective processing bias. Depressed patients are not characterized by a shift towards a pronounced protective pattern during symptom remission.
Karparova
Stanislava Petkova
SP
University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Kersting
Anette
A
Suslow
Thomas
T
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012074:Remission Induction; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014825:Vocabulary