title: Illness history: Not associated with remission during treatment of major depression in 515 mood disorder patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is suggestive evidence that prior illness history may have little association with response to long-term treatment in bipolar disorder (BD) or recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD), but relationships of illness-history to treatment-response in acute episodes of depression require further testing.
  
  
  METHODS
  We tested for associations of selected measures of illness history with remission during treatment of an acute index episode of major depression in 515 mood-disorder patients (327 MDD, 188 BD), using bivariate and multivariate methods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Remission of depression was more likely with lesser initial symptom-severity and bipolar diagnosis, but not related to years since illness-onset, previous depressions or episodes (based on counts, yearly rates, or %-of months ill), or other indices of illness-severity (hospitalization, co-morbidity, suicide attempt).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Likelihood of response to standard treatments for acute major depressive episodes in MDD or BD appeared to be largely independent of prior illness-history.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States; International Consortium for Psychotic and Mood Disorders Research, Mailman Research Center, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, United States. Electronic address: rbaldessarini@mclean.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Ross J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Baldessarini
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States; International Consortium for Psychotic and Mood Disorders Research, Mailman Research Center, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, United States; Lucio Bini Mood Disorders Center, Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy.
authors.forename: Leonardo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tondo
authors.affiliation: International Consortium for Psychotic and Mood Disorders Research, Mailman Research Center, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, United States; Lucio Bini Mood Disorders Center, Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy.
authors.forename: Caterina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Visioli
authors.affiliation: International Consortium for Psychotic and Mood Disorders Research, Mailman Research Center, McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, United States; Department of Neurosciences, Palermo University, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Gustavo H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Vázquez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D015897:Comorbidity; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D012008:Recurrence; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Bipolar disorder; Depression; Major depressive disorder; Morbid history; Treatment response