title: Effortful information processing in patients with major depression - a 10-year follow-up study.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to longitudinally investigate effortful cognitive functioning in a group of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) in a 10-year follow-up period. Results at inclusion in the acute phase of MDD showed impaired effortful processing and that this impairment prevailed at a 6-month follow-up, despite significant symptom reduction. Non-effortful processing was normal as compared to healthy controls. Sixteen patients along with 16 healthy controls were included in the 10-year follow-up. They all participated in the original study and were matched for age and educational length. The mean symptom load at the time of testing at the 10-year follow-up indicated that the patients as a group were in remission. All participants were examined with a visual search paradigm, with demands for effortful and non-effortful processing. Results showed that the patient group had normalized their performance for effortful information processing and no longer differed significantly from the healthy controls at the 10-year follow-up, and the lack of difference between the groups for non-effortful processing remained the same. These results indicate that short-term effortful cognitive impairments normalize over the course of long-term recovery that goes together with clinical improvement and remission.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. aasa.hammar@psybp.uib.no
authors.forename: Asa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hammar
authors.forename: Guro
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ardal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance