Major Depression

Abstract

The term depression refers to a wide variety of phenomena, including normal sadness, mild dysphoria, and severe depression with psychotic features. While everyone has experienced periods of sadness, the diagnosis of depression as a mental health disorder requires the presence of persistent depressed mood or loss of interest and pleasure and the presence of other associated features. As described by DSM-III-R, the revised third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a diagnosis of major depression requires a 2-week period characterized by the aforementioned changes “most of the day, nearly every day” and the concurrent presence of four of the following symptoms: (1) loss of interest and pleasure, (2) significant weight loss or gain, (3) insomnia or hypersomnia, (4) psychomotor retardation or agitation, (5) fatigue or loss of energy, (6) feelings of worthlessness or guilt, (7) impaired concentration or indecisiveness, and (8) recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. While major depression has traditionally been conceptualized as an episodic disorder, more recent research has suggested that for many patients major depression is a chronic disorder that is associated with long-term dysfunction.