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Clinical Quest for Associated Cognitive Impairment in Major Depressed Patients

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Abstract

Patients diagnosed with unipolar disorder usually experience impaired cognitive functioning during an acute depressive episode. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the association of specific clinical factors with cognitive dysfunction in a group of major depressed patients. 65 subjects diagnosed with recurrent major depressive disorder were evaluated during an acute episode. The cognitive functions were assessed with neuropsychological tests for attention and processing speed, memory, verbal fluency, psychomotor speed and executive functions. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale - 17 items was used to quantify the severity of depression. Clinical variables consisted in age at onset, number of previous depressive episodes, presence of psychotic symptoms or suicide attempts. The group had a mean age of 48.48 years, with predominance of females, with a history of 5.43 episodes and associated psychotic symptoms (23.1%) and suicide attempts (20%). Cognitive domains for which we found significant results (p < 0.05) were executive functions and attention, being associated with the number of previous depressive episodes. Psychomotor speed was significantly associated with the severity of depression. Also, patients with psychotic symptoms obtained altered results for psychomotor speed and verbal memory. For almost all cognitive domains we found significant statistical association with different clinical aspects, such as number of depressive episodes, severity of depression, presence of psychotic symptoms and suicide attempts. Since each of them had an influence over cognition, further studies involving larger samples are necessary to establish if there is a direct relationship between cognitive impairment and clinical variables.

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Abbreviations

MDD:

Major Depressive Disorder

MDE:

Major Depressive Episode

DSM:

IV TR Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision

ICD-10:

International Classification of Diseases 10th revision

HAM-D:

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale

BACS:

Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia

TMT:

A and B Trail Making Test A and B

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge lecturer Codruta Mare from “Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, who performed the statistical analysis and interpretation of data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosciences, Psychiatry and Pediatric Psychiatry Chair, “Iuliu Hațieganu“, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 43 Victor Babeș Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Bianca Daniela Suciu & Ioana Valentina Micluţia

  2. Psychiatric Clinic, Emergency County Hospital, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Ioana Valentina Micluţia

Authors
  1. Bianca Daniela Suciu
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  2. Ioana Valentina Micluţia
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Correspondence to Bianca Daniela Suciu.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (“Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy Ethics Committee) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Before being included in the study group, patients had to sign an informed consent.

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Suciu, B.D., Micluţia, I.V. Clinical Quest for Associated Cognitive Impairment in Major Depressed Patients. Psychiatr Q 91, 749–759 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-020-09733-6

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