Biomedical subjects

J Tedlow

Publications and source records attributed to J Tedlow.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1996

Fluoxetine treatment of anger attacks: a replication study.

"Anger attacks" are outbursts of anger which are accompanied by intense autonomic arousal and are clearly inappropriate to the situation in which they occur. The Anger Attacks Questionnaire, designed to assess these attacks, was administered to 164 consecutive patients (78 men and 86 women; mean age, 40.5 +/- 11.0 years) diagnosed as having major depression with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. These patients were treated openly with fluoxetine, 20 mg/day for 8 weeks, and the prevalence of anger attacks was assessed before and after treatment. At baseline, 64 (39%) (26 men and 38 women) of these patients reported having anger attacks according to our criteria. Forty-one (64%) of the 64 depressed patients with anger attacks at baseline did not report anger attacks following fluoxetine treatment, while 7 (7%) of the 100 patients who did not have anger attacks at baseline reported these attacks following treatment, with this difference being statistically significant (chi 2 = 22.7, p < .0005).

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Axis I and Axis II disorder comorbidity in unipolar depression with anger attacks.

OBJECTIVE: We evaluated whether anger attacks in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) are associated with higher rates of panic or other Axis I or II comorbid disorders. METHODS: 306 out-patients (163 women, mean age 39.5+/-10.5) with MDD were administered the Structured Clinical Interviews for Axis I and II Disorders, and the Anger Attacks Questionnaire. RESULTS: Patients with anger attacks showed only a trend toward a significantly higher rate of current panic disorder (P = 0.06) but no other difference in Axis I comorbidity. In addition patients with anger attacks had a slightly but significantly greater degree of depression severity. Consistent with previous studies, we have also found that depressed patients with anger attacks had significantly higher rates of dependent, avoidant, narcissistic, borderline, and antisocial personality disorders than those without anger attacks. CONCLUSION: Anger attacks do not appear to be associated with any specific pattern of Axis I comorbidity, but they are certainly linked with certain personality disorders. It is possible that the acute depressive state may have confounded the assessment of personality disorder rates, as well as the presence of anger attacks. On the other hand, both depressed patient groups (with or without anger attacks) were subject to the same confounding effect as their depression severity was rather comparable, thereby limiting the impact of this potential bias.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Outcome definitions and predictors in depression.

BACKGROUND: The definition of outcome in antidepressant treatment studies may be a crucial factor influencing the relationship between possible treatment variables and treatment response. We therefore wanted to investigate possible relationships between baseline severity of depression and anxiety, and different definitions of outcome among outpatients with major depressive disorder undergoing antidepressant treatment. METHODS: Two hundred and forty-eight patients diagnosed with major depression with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Diagnosis - Patient Edition were treated with fluoxetine 20 mg/day for 8 weeks. Patients were evaluated both pretreatment and posttreatment with the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Ham-D-17), the Clinical Global Impressions Scales for Severity (CGI-S) and Improvement (CGI-I). We chose four continuous definitions of response using a linear regression method to analyze the relationship to baseline anxiety and depression. We used a logistic regression analysis for the relationship between seven categorical definitions of response and baseline severity of depression and anxiety. RESULTS: Greater endpoint severity was significantly positively related to greater baseline severity of depression and anxiety. Lesser baseline severity of depression or anxiety predicted a greater degree of response on either the endpoint CGI-I score (with lower scores indicating greater improvement) or the percent change in HAM-D-17 score (with higher percent change indicating greater improvement). For all seven categorical definitions of response, lower baseline scores were significantly related to the probability of being a responder. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the impression that how outcome is defined affects the strength and direction of observed relationships with predictive variables. Methodological implications are discussed.

Adult↗