Clinical Comparison Between Adjustment Disorder with Depressive Mood and Major Depressive Disorder

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) following a life event to those suffering from adjustment disorder (AD) with depressed mood in terms of clinical features, nature of precipitating stress factors, and functioning. Met-hods: In this study, we included 32 individuals diagnosed as AD with depressed mood, 22 individuals diagnosed as MDD following a life event, and a control group of 30 individuals without any psychological or physical illness. The participants completed the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAS), Hamilton Depression Scale (HDS), Rahe-Holmes Social Readjustment Rating Scale, Life Experiences Survey (LES), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale and the Social Functioning Scale (SFS). Both patient groups have been evaluated prospectively for six months. The data were analyzed using Spearman’s rank correlation, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance, chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests.Re-sults: The symptom profile of patients diagnosed as having AD with depressed mood was found to be similar to that of subjects with MDD. However, the patients suffering from AD with depressed mood had higher scores on HAS and HDS as compared to the individuals with MDD and, the functioning levels were lower in the MDD group than in the AD group. The severity of life event was related to the severity of psychopathology in the AD group, but this was not the case for the MD group. Conc-lu-si-on: Clinically, AD is quite similar to MDD. AD, a disorder related to life event, is less severe disorder than MDD in terms of symptom profile. At the same time, AD patients demonstrate higher level of functioning than MDD patients. The relationship between MDD and AD should be investigated with larger sample size and long prospective studies. (Arc-hi-ves of Neu-ropsy-chi-atry 2012; 49: 20-8)