Long-term social functioning after depression treated by psychiatrists: a review.

Objectives: Numerous long-term studies of depression in psychiatric settings have shown a poor clinical outcome but little emphasis has been placed on psychosocial or functional outcome in studies to date. This article reviews published data on long-term social functioning after depression and considers why psychosocial recovery appears delayed compared with clinical recovery.

Methods: Searches were carried out of the databases MEDLINE, PSYCHLIT and EMBASE for articles published from 1980 using keywords relating to social and functional outcomes of unipolar and bipolar depression.

What's new? The clinical epidemiology of bipolar I disorder.

The last few decades have seen a rapid change in our understanding of the epidemiology of bipolar disorder, which has only recently started to achieve major research attention. This article reviews recent developments. In addition to electronic searches using MEDLINE and PsycLIT, references from articles were identified, major journals hand searched, and major textbooks of psychiatry and epidemiology reviewed.