Feeling unsupported? An investigation of depressed patients' perceptions.

Background: Much is known about the importance of social support for psychological health and general coping. While several measures exist to assess social support as a construct, less attention has been given to assessing the clinical and demographic factors associated with perceptions of low social support from multiple sources in clinically depressed patients.

Methods: Data on social support and depression history and severity were collected from a sample of 218 outpatients with major depression.

Is behavioral inhibition a risk factor for depression?

Background: Several studies have reported an observed relationship between a behaviorally inhibited temperament early in life and subsequent clinical anxiety, but few have explored the relationship between early inhibition and depression.

Methods: In a cross-sectional survey of non-clinical adults we examined the relationship between retrospectively reported childhood behavioral inhibition and lifetime depression. We then examined the mediating role of social anxiety and childhood relational stress factors.

Do bullied children become anxious and depressed adults?: A cross-sectional investigation of the correlates of bullying and anxious depression.

There is little empirical research examining the historical and clinical correlates of exposure to childhood bullying in adult clinical subjects. Using structured clinical assessments, the authors studied a group of adult males and females presenting to an outpatient depression clinic, to examine the childhood risk factors and the distinguishing comorbid features associated with those reporting exposure to bullying. Just over a quarter of both men and women reported having experienced bullying that was severe and traumatic.

A Brief Measure of Worry Severity (BMWS): personality and clinical correlates of severe worriers.

This report describes the development of a brief and valid self-report measure to assess severe and dysfunctional worry (the Brief Measure of Worry Severity or BMWS). Using three independent subject groups (clinical and non-clinical), the measure was used to examine the differential severity of worry in depression and anxiety and to examine the clinical and personality correlates of severe worriers. Preliminary psychometric evaluation revealed that the BMWS possesses good construct and clinical discriminant validity.

Relationship between self-reported childhood behavioral inhibition and lifetime anxiety disorders in a clinical sample.

To examine the association between an early inhibited temperament and lifetime anxiety disorders, we studied a sample of patients with major depression who were not selected on the basis of comorbid axis I anxiety disorders. One-hundred eighty-nine adults (range = 17-68 years) referred to a tertiary depression unit underwent structured diagnostic interviews for depression and anxiety and completed two self-report measures of behavioral inhibition, the retrospective measure of behavioural inhibition (RMBI) [Gladstone and Parker, 2005] and the adult measure of behavioural inhibition (AMBI) [Gladstone and Parker, 2005]. Patients' scores were classified into "low," "moderate," or "high" inhibition.

Implications of childhood trauma for depressed women: an analysis of pathways from childhood sexual abuse to deliberate self-harm and revictimization.

Objective: Data from depressed women with and without a history of childhood sexual abuse were used to characterize clinical features that distinguished the two groups and to examine relationships of childhood sexual abuse to lifetime deliberate self-harm and recent interpersonal violence.

Method: One hundred twenty-five women with depressive disorders were interviewed and completed self-report questionnaires. Path analysis was used to examine relationships of several childhood and personality variables with deliberate self-harm in adulthood and recent interpersonal violence.

Severity of stressful life events in first and subsequent episodes of depression: the relevance of depressive subtype.

Background: Recent studies have reignited debate concerning the relationship between stressful life events and depressive subtypes, particularly in relation to first versus subsequent episodes.

Aims: To investigate the relationship between stressful life events and variably defined melancholic/non-melancholic depressive subtypes, and the import of such life events to first compared with subsequent episodes across those subtypes.

Method: Acute and chronic stressful life events were rated in 270 patients with DSM-IV Major Depressive episodes who were allocated to melancholic and non-melancholic groups separately as defined by DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, the Newcastle criteria and the CORE system.