Patients who have false-positive screening results may have
dysthymia (chronic, low-grade depression), subsyndromal depressive disorders, comorbid disorders (substance abuse, anxiety, panic, or stress), grief reactions, or no disorder at all.
Barrett[10,11] presented a trial evaluating antidepressant medications and Problem-Solving Therapy (PST) for patients with minor depression or
dysthymia that showed benefits for medications but not for PST.
School-age youngsters can develop major depression as well as a milder form termed
dysthymia, which has its own distinct symptoms, Kovacs says.
"Even in this small sample size, we showed improvement in the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) and the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Cornell
Dysthymia Rating Scale," he said in an interview.
* For patients with
dysthymia, pharmacotherapy should be used as a first-line treatment.
Another 3.3 percent reported
dysthymia (a mild depression), 2.8 percent reported alcohol abuse/dependence and 2.2 percent reported an episode of major depression.
In addition, there could be an underlying vulnerability that causes people to experience both
dysthymia and social impairment.
When looking at the effects of individual psychiatric disorders, those with panic disorder were seven times more likely to receive opioids, while patients with depression,
dysthymia, or problem drug use were approximately four times more likely to receive opioids.
It is tempting to agree with Barrett and colleagues[1] that
dysthymia in primary care is a separate and unique syndrome that requires pharmacologic intervention, though patients with minor depression respond well to watchful waiting.
Stewart, "
dysthymia is what ruins people's lives." Work history, history of success, and failure in social settings are clearly part of dysthymic disorder.
Shaffer identified comorbid mental disorders in this group of patients, including alcohol/substance abuse/gambling disorder in 99%, generalized anxiety disorder/depression or
dysthymia in 20%, conduct disorder in 22%, posttraumatic stress disorder in 14%, and mania in 9%.
I read recently the following statistics on mental health.Three hundred million people suffer in the world from anxiety, about 160 million from major depressive disorder and another 100 million from the milder form of depression known as
dysthymia, and these figures do not include those suffering from the fast growing illness of dementia.