One-year prospective replication study of an untreated sample of community dysthymia subjects

This study replicates an earlier naturalistic-prospective investigation of nontreatment, community DSM-III-R dysthymia subjects. Major goals were to determine spontaneous remission rates and monitor the stability of psychosocial functioning levels over time. Twenty-four dysthymia subjects were followed for 1 year. Three remissions (13%) were diagnosed at the final interview. At a 4-year diagnostic follow-up contact with the remitters only, one remitter had relapsed and two remained in remission. Subjects were monitored for depressive symptom intensity, personality functioning, general medical distress, cognitive functioning, coping stylistics, interpersonal functioning, quality of their social support resources, and general family functioning. Stable levels of psychosocial functioning were maintained across all measures over the 1-year period. Current psychometric findings confirm the conclusions of the earlier nontreatment prospective study that dysthymia is a chronic mood disorder with stable psychosocial features and is unlikely to remit spontaneously over time.

Comparison of a community dysthymia sample at screening with a matched group of nondepressed community controls

The primary goal of the study was to compare the psychosocial functioning of an untreated, community sample of DSM-III-R dysthymia subjects (N = 24) at screening to that of a matched sample of community nondepressed volunteers (N = 18) with no lifetime or current history of axis I disorders. Subjects were compared across a number of psychosocial indices. The dysthymics were found to be less sociable (introversion) and clinically high on neuroticism-instability, external in regard to their causal attributions, less stable for positive uncontrollable events and more stable and global for negative uncontrollable events, relying more on coping strategies such as wishful thinking and self-blame, more interpersonally submissive and hostile, and to have a poorer social support-resource network. In addition, the dysthymics reported more family dysfunction and a higher rate of negative major life events.

A longitudinal study of an untreated sample of predominantly late onset characterological dysthymia

The current study represents one of the first psychological investigations that attempts to describe the untreated course of late onset characterological dysthymia. Of 34 dysthymic subjects who were studied for 9 months, six women remitted (18%). Twenty-eight subjects (82%) remained unchanged. Among the nonremitters, we found stable patterns of functioning in the cognitive, coping, personality, interpersonal, and environmental spheres. The destructive nature of these refractory patterns appeared to predispose the individual to a depressionogenic lifestyle. These unchanging features were not found among the remitters. The small size of the remitting group makes our speculations tentative but we did find consistent changes over time across measures of functioning. While the symptom-affective features of the nonremitters remained at clinically significant levels throughout, the depressive symptom levels of the six remitters decreased to nonsignificant clinical levels during the last half of the study. It was noted that, based on these preliminary data, DSM-III-R may be "underdescriptive" in regard to relevant symptom features of characterological dysthymia.

Relaxation-induced anxiety in a subclinical sample of chronically anxious subjects

Recent reports indicate that some individuals experience increased anxiety during formal relaxation training; however, there has been just one controlled investigation of this phenomenon (Heide and Borkovec, 1983). The present study was designed to replicate and extend the findings of Heide and Borkovec by providing evidence of "relaxation-induced anxiety" during one session of taped progressive relaxation training. Thirty chronically anxious subjects (21 females, 9 males) participated. Five subjects (17%) reported increased anxiety during the session. Personality measures indicated that relaxation-induced anxiety may be associated with an internal locus of control, a generalized fear of becoming anxious, and a fear of losing control.