Abstract:
Approximately 121 million people in the world experience depression, making depression a leading cause of disability. The preponderance of research indicates that depression has a significant influence on patients' quality of life. Compared to non-depressed individuals, patients with depression have poorer physical, social, occupational, and psychological functioning; life satisfaction; and self-perceived health. Depressed patients also tend to have more problems with their interpersonal relationships. The impact of depression on quality of life has been found to be similar to or worse than the impact of other chronic diseases, such as heart problems and diabetes, on quality of life. Research investigating how antidepressants affect quality of life has concluded that antidepressants tend to improve quality of life. Antidepressants, however, have the greatest influence on quality of life domains in the acute phase of treatment. In the maintenance and continuation stages of treatment, antidepressants mostly serve to maintain the improvements experienced during the acute stage. There is mixed evidence about the quality of life of patients after they recover from depression, with some research suggesting that patients' quality of life is still somewhat poorer than patients who did not experience depression. Patients who are in treatment for depression and experience a relapse tend to lose the improvements they had in their quality of life due to pharmacotherapy.
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Abbreviations
- DALYs:
-
disability adjusted life years
- MDD:
-
major depressive disorder
- WHO:
-
World Health Organization
- YLDs:
-
years lived with disability
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Dan, A.A., Younossi, Z.M. (2010). Depressive Symptoms and Health-Related Quality of Life. In: Preedy, V.R., Watson, R.R. (eds) Handbook of Disease Burdens and Quality of Life Measures. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-78665-0_203
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-78665-0_203
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