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Iwona Chelminski

Publications and source records attributed to Iwona Chelminski.

45 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed2004

On the threshold of disorder: a study of the impact of the DSM-IV clinical significance criterion on diagnosing depressive and anxiety disorders in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Two recent reanalyses of epidemiologic studies found that adding a clinical significance criterion reduced disorder prevalence. Patients presenting for clinical care are usually distressed or impaired by their symptoms; thus, the DSM-IV clinical significance criterion might have little impact on diagnosis in clinical practice. In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project, we examine the impact of the DSM-IV clinical significance criterion on diagnostic frequencies of depressive and anxiety disorders in psychiatric outpatients. METHOD: 1500 psychiatric outpatients were evaluated with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. We determined the percentage of patients who met symptom criteria but did not meet the DSM-IV clinical significance criterion for major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), social phobia, specific phobia, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. RESULTS: No patient who met the symptom criteria for current major depressive disorder or PTSD failed to meet the clinical significance criterion. Less than 2% of patients meeting the symptom criteria for current GAD did not meet the clinical significance criterion. There was variability among the remaining anxiety disorders in the percentage of symptomatic patients who met the clinical significance criterion. CONCLUSION: In psychiatric patients, the clinical significance criterion had little impact on diagnosing major depressive disorder, GAD, and PTSD, disorders that are defined, in part, by disruptions of daily regulatory domains such as sleep, appetite, energy, and concentration. In contrast, the clinical significance criterion had a greater impact in determining whether phobic fears, obsessive thoughts, and panic attacks were sufficiently distressing or impairing to qualify for disorder status.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Pathological worry in depressed and anxious patients.

Anxious apprehension is present in all anxiety disorders and concerns have been raised that worry is not confined to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). The aims of the present project were three-fold. First, we reexamined whether the level of pathological worry is higher in patients with GAD than other anxiety disorders. Second, we compared worry scores of patients with "pure" GAD, "pure" MDD, and MDD with comorbid GAD. And third, to examine whether worry is specific to psychopathology in general rather than anxiety or depression, we included a control group (psychiatric outpatients without an affective or anxiety disorder). Twelve hundred outpatients were interviewed and completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) upon presentation for treatment. Patients with "pure" GAD had the highest scores. Depressed patients were similar to those with anxiety disorders other than GAD, and the control group showed worrying similar to that in general population and nonanxious samples.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Generalized anxiety disorder in patients with major depression: is DSM-IV's hierarchy correct?

OBJECTIVE: DSM-III imposed a hierarchical relationship in the diagnosis of anxiety disorders in depressed patients, stipulating that anxiety disorders could not be diagnosed if their occurrence was limited to the course of a mood disorder. In the subsequent versions of the DSM this hierarchy was eliminated for all anxiety disorders except generalized anxiety disorder. The authors examined the validity of this remaining hierarchical relationship between mood and anxiety disorders. METHOD: Psychiatric outpatients with major depressive disorder (N=332) were evaluated with a semistructured diagnostic interview and completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires on presentation for treatment. To study the validity of the DSM-IV hierarchical relationship between generalized anxiety disorder and mood disorders, the authors made a diagnosis of modified generalized anxiety disorder for patients with major depressive disorder who met all the criteria for generalized anxiety disorder except for the exclusion criterion. The analyses compared the characteristics of three nonoverlapping groups of patients with DSM-IV major depressive disorder: 1) those with coexisting DSM-IV generalized anxiety disorder, 2) those with coexisting modified generalized anxiety disorder, and 3) those with neither DSM-IV nor modified generalized anxiety disorder. RESULTS: Compared to the depressed patients without generalized anxiety disorder, the depressed patients with DSM-IV and modified generalized anxiety disorder had higher levels of suicidal ideation; poorer social functioning; a greater frequency of other anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and somatoform disorders; higher scores on most subscales of a multidimensional self-report measure of DSM-IV axis I disorders; a greater level of pathological worry; and a higher morbid risk for generalized anxiety disorder in first-degree family members. The two generalized anxiety disorder groups did not differ from each other. CONCLUSIONS: The findings question the validity of the DSM-IV hierarchical relationship between major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder and suggest that the exclusion criterion should be eliminated.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

The construct validity of depressive personality disorder.

This study examined the construct validity of depressive personality disorder (DPD: American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Adult psychiatric outpatients (N = 900) underwent comprehensive Axis I and II evaluations and provided data on 4,768 of their 1st-degree relatives. Despite modest overlap, DPD was not redundant with any Axis I or II disorder. Participants with DPD exhibited more Axis I and Axis II comorbidity, and greater psychosocial dysfunction, than participants without DPD. Relatives of participants with DPD had higher rates of mood disorders, alcohol abuse, and antisocial personality. Results are consistent with findings of several other similar investigations. The authors argue that DPD is a valid construct and should be conceptualized as a personality disorder as opposed to a mood disorder.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Symptom severity and exclusion from antidepressant efficacy trials.

It is the standard practice in antidepressant efficacy trials (AETs) to exclude potential participants with major depressive disorder (MDD) who score below a threshold on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D). It is unknown to what extent various cutoff scores impact on the generalizability of these trials. In the present report, we sought to determine how many patients with MDD presenting to an outpatient practice would fail to qualify for an AET because their symptoms were not sufficiently severe, and to what extent the variability in HAM-D cutoff scores impacts exclusion rates. Fifteen hundred individuals presenting for an intake at a psychiatric outpatient practice underwent an evaluation with semistructured diagnostic interviews. Five hundred and three patients received a principal diagnosis of nonbipolar, nonpsychotic MDD. Thirty-nine AETs published in five leading journals during the past 7 years were reviewed, 36 of which required a minimum score on the HAM-D for inclusion. We applied the HAM-D cutoffs used in these AETs to the 503 depressed patients to determine how many would qualify for each AET. Based on the least and most restrictive cutoff scores, between 11.3% and 71.0% of the depressed patients from our practice had an insufficient HAM-D score to qualify for an AET. The two most commonly used cutoff scores would lead to the exclusion of almost half of our sample. AETs tend to include the subset of depressed individuals with moderate to severe MDD and exclude a significant proportion of depressed patients who have mild MDD. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Major depressive disorder and axis I diagnostic comorbidity.

BACKGROUND: Recognition of comorbid conditions in patients presenting for the treatment of depression is clinically important because the presence of other disorders can influence treatment planning. In the present study, we examined the frequency of diagnostic comorbidity in psychiatric outpatients presenting for treatment of nonbipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) and patients' desire for treatment for the comorbid disorders. METHOD: Four hundred seventy-nine psychiatric outpatients with DSM-IV nonbipolar MDD were evaluated with a modified version of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. RESULTS: Excluding nicotine dependence, at the time of the evaluation 64.1% (N = 307) of the patients met criteria for at least 1 of the 23 specific Axis I disorders, and more than one third (36.7%, N = 176) had 2 or more disorders. Anxiety disorders, as a group, were the most frequent current comorbid disorders (56.8%), and social phobia was the most frequent individual disorder. Including subthreshold conditions, the percentage of patients with at least 1 disorder increased to 73.5%. When the scope of assessment was expanded to include nicotine dependence, nicotine dependence was the most frequent lifetime individual disorder (38.2%) and the second most frequent current disorder (27.3%). There was considerable variability among the disorders regarding desire for treatment of the comorbid condition. CONCLUSION: The majority of nonbipolar depressed patients have a current comorbid disorder, especially an anxiety disorder, although the actual rate of comorbidity depends on the breadth of the assessment.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Derivation of a definition of remission on the Montgomery-Asberg depression rating scale corresponding to the definition of remission on the Hamilton rating scale for depression.

During the past decade the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) has been used with increasing frequency to measure outcome in antidepressant efficacy trials (AETs). In characterizing treatment outcome in AETs it is common to define treatment remission as a score below a predetermined cutoff score on the scale. Various cutoffs have been used to define remission on the MADRS. The goal of the present paper is to determine the cutoff on the MADRS that most closely corresponds to the cutoff most frequently used on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression to define remission. Three hundred and three psychiatric outpatients who were being treated for a DSM-IV major depressive episode were rated on the HRSD and the MADRS. A linear regression equation was computed to estimate MADRS scores from HRSD scores. After deriving the regression equation, we computed the MADRS score corresponding to an HRSD score of 7. We also examined the sensitivity, specificity and overall classification rate of the MADRS for identifying remission on the HRSD. Based on the equation from a linear regression analysis for the entire sample, a MADRS score of </=11 would correspond to a score of </=7 on the HRSD. We repeated the analysis after excluding the more severely depressed patients who currently met criteria for MDD, and based on the equation from this regression analysis a MADRS score of </=10 would correspond to a score of </=7 on the HRSD. In a complementary analysis, we examined the sensitivity, specificity and overall classification rate of the MADRS at different cutoff points for identifying remission, and found that a cutoff of </=10 maximized the level of agreement with the HRSD definition of remission. In conclusion, the regression equation relating HRSD and MADRS scores is dependent, in part, on the range and severity of scores in the sample. To facilitate comparisons of studies using the HRSD and MADRS our results suggest that a cutoff of 10 on the MADRS is equivalent to the HRSD cutoff of 7.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Clinician recognition of anxiety disorders in depressed outpatients.

The recognition of anxiety disorders in depressed patients has potential clinical significance because their presence predicts poorer outcome and may influence treatment selection. In routine clinical settings, an unstructured diagnostic interview is typically used to assess patients at the initiation of treatment. Unstructured interviews, however, may result in missed diagnoses, with potential negative clinical consequences. The goals of the present study were to examine whether anxiety disorders are less frequently identified using a routine unstructured clinical evaluation than a semi-structured diagnostic interview in patients with a principal diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD), and to determine patients' desire for treatment for comorbid anxiety disorders. Psychiatric outpatients with MDD were evaluated with either a semi-structured or an unstructured diagnostic interview. Current DSM-IV anxiety disorder diagnoses were compared in the two, nonoverlapping, groups of depressed psychiatric outpatients seen in the same practice setting. Patients with comorbid anxiety disorders who were interviewed with the semi-structured interview were asked if they wanted treatment to address their anxiety symptoms. Individuals interviewed with the semi-structured interview were diagnosed with significantly more current anxiety disorders than individuals who were assessed with an unstructured interview. There was variability in patients' desire for treatment of the different anxiety disorders, though for each disorder the majority of patients wanted treatment to address the anxiety symptoms. In psychiatric outpatients with a principal diagnosis of MDD psychiatrists underrecognize anxiety disorder comorbidity for which patients want treatment.

Adult↗