Symptoms of MDD

Co-existence of irritability and anxiety was observed in the MDD (major depressive disorders). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), is a study to understand the various components of irritability and anxiety, impact and their relationship with MDD. Clinical data of the MDD patients were collected from open labelled antidepressant treatment. From the results it is clear that approximately 50% of patients failed to ADTs, and suffered with symptoms of anxious distress and irritability due to lower ADT response rates.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by several diagnostic or core symptoms and feelings such as sadness, loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities, sleep and/or appetite disturbances, and fatigue. However, clinically, depression is often accompanied by symptoms outside of the diagnostic criteria such as anxiety and irritability.Over the past 20 years, apreponderance of literature has suggested a subtype of MDD with anxioussymptoms. 

In 2013, the clinical significance of anxious features in depressed patients was acknowledged in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) with the addition of criteria for an anxious distress specifier for MDD. The “with anxious distress” specifier is defined as the presence of at least two of the following five symptoms during most days of a major depressive episode: 1) feeling keyed up or tense, 2) feeling unusually restless, 3) difficulty concentrating because of worry, 4) fear that something awful may happen, and 5) feeling that the individual might lose control of himself or herself. In a 2014 study, patients meeting DSM-5 criteria for the anxious distress specifier reported poorer psychosocial functioning and quality of life than depressed patients who did not meet these criteria. Read more.............