Background

Psychomotor Retardation is a key symptom of Major Depressive Disorder. According to the literature its presence may affect the prognosis of treatment. Aim of the present study is to investigate the prognostic role of Psychomotor Retardation in patients with unipolar Psychotic Depression who are under antidepressant treatment.

Methods

The Salpetriere Retardation Rating Scale was administered at baseline and after 6 weeks to 122 patients with unipolar Psychotic Depression who were randomly allocated to treatment with imipramine, venlafaxine or venlafaxine plus quetiapine. We studied the effects of Psychomotor Retardation on both depression and psychosis related outcome measures.

Results

73% of the patients had Psychomotor Retardation at baseline against 35% after six weeks of treatment. The presence of Psychomotor Retardation predicted lower depression remission rates in addition to a higher persistence of delusions. After six weeks of treatment, venlafaxine was associated with higher levels of Psychomotor Retardation compared to imipramine and venlafaxine plus quetiapine.

Conclusions

Our data confirm that Psychomotor Retardation is a severity marker of unipolar Psychotic Depression. It is highly prevalent and predicts lower effectivity of antidepressant psychopharmacological treatment.

中文翻译：

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单相精神病性抑郁症患者的精神运动迟缓和抗抑郁治疗的预后。

背景

心理运动迟缓是重度抑郁症的关键症状。根据文献，它的存在可能影响治疗的预后。本研究的目的是研究精神运动迟缓在接受抗抑郁药治疗的单相性精神病抑郁患者中的预后作用。

方法

在基线时和6周后，对122例单相性精神病性抑郁症患者施行Salpetriere迟缓评估量表，这些患者随机分配接受丙咪嗪，文拉法辛或文拉法辛加喹硫平治疗。我们研究了精神运动迟缓对抑郁症和精神病相关结局指标的影响。

结果

73％的患者在基线时出现精神运动迟缓，而治疗六周后为35％。精神运动迟缓的存在预示着抑郁症的缓解率较低，此外妄想的持续性更高。治疗六周后，文拉法辛与丙咪嗪和文拉法辛加喹硫平相比，精神运动迟缓水平更高。

结论

我们的数据证实，精神运动迟缓是单相性精神病性抑郁的严重程度标志。它非常普遍，并预测抗抑郁药的心理药物治疗的有效性较低。