Depression, also known as major depressive disorder or clinical depression, is a serious and common mood disorder. Those who suffer from depression experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness and lose interest in activities they once enjoyed. In addition to emotional problems caused by depression, people may also have a physical symptom such as chronic pain or digestive problems. To be diagnosed with depression, symptoms must be present for at least two weeks. The DSM-5 criteria for major depressive disorder are specific and require that the person experience a depressed mood most of the day, for more days than not, for at least two weeks.
The symptom must be new or clearly worsened compared to the person's pre-episode state and should persist most of the day, every day, for at least 2 weeks in a row. Exclude symptoms that are clearly due to a general medical condition, delusions incongruous with mood, or hallucinations incongruous with mood. A mixed episode is characterized by the symptoms of a major depressive episode and a manic episode that occur almost daily for at least a period of 1 week. When grief and depression coincide, grief is more severe and lasts longer than grief without depression. Pain and depression can coexist for some people, the death of a loved one, losing a job, or being the victim of physical assault or serious disaster can lead to depression. A discriminant analysis was conducted to examine whether the DSM-5 criteria accurately distinguished between non-depressed, moderately depressed and severely depressed groups as defined by the 17-item HAMD scores.
As expected, all DSM-5 symptoms were found to be more frequent in the groups with severe depression and moderate depression compared to the control group (not depressed).In addition to the diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder, changes published in DSM-5 included the addition of new prescribers and depressive mood disorders. A person with persistent depressive disorder (formerly called dysthymic disorder) has a depressed mood most of the day, for more days than not, for at least two years.
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