B. Carpiniello, M.G. Carta - Vol. 10, June 2004, Issue 2
Testo Immagini Bibliografia Summary Indice
Qualità di vita e depressione: problemi
metodologici ed impatto dei trattamenti
Quality of life and depression: methodological problems and impact
of treatments
Quality of life (QOL) is an outcome measure of growing importance in psychiatry, in particular in studies regarding mood disorders. This papers reviews some, mainly methodological, problems regarding the evaluation of QOL in mood disorders. After a Medline search, all studies regarding drug treatment of depression published between 1994 and 2003 which assessed QOL by means of standardized instruments are reviewed. 41 studies have been found, mainly regarding SSRIs, compared to placebo and/or to other antidepressants (ADs). ADs, in particular SSRIs, showed a significant superiority with respect to placebo in improving QOL measures, but no convincing superiority of a given AD over other comparators on QOL measures could be detected.