Estimación de la prevalencia puntual de alteraciones neuropsicológicas asociadas al trastorno depresivo mayor (Estimated point prevalence of neuropsychological disorders associated with major depressive disorder)

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a chronic affective disorder associated with cognitive impairment. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of neuropsychological deficit in patients with MDD who were not receiving pharmacotherapy. The results obtained from a neuropsychological assessment battery were compared to the normative data. We also investigated whether specific cognitive functions change more frequently than others in MDD and determined whether there were any associations between the neuropsychological deficits in MDD and various clinical and socio-demographic variables. A total of 174 subjects who met DSM-IV criteria for diagnosis of MDD without major medical comorbidities (psychopathology or physical illness) and who were not receiving pharmacotherapy were assessed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). CANTAB was used to determine the prevalence of neuropsychological deficit and studied its association with the variables age, years of education, WAIS vocabulary, age at first episode and comorbidity estimated by Odds Ratios. Our data suggest that cognitive impairment in patients with MDD has a very high prevalence and is relatively independent of socio-demographic and clinical variables.