Duration of Untreated Illness; Year of Onset Early/Late and Gender Differences, Symptoms in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder: AnEighteen-Month, Cross-Sectional, Clinical Study inSouthwest China

Abstract

Objective:

Previous studies have reported differences between adolescent-depression and adult- onset depression with respect to demographic and clinical symptoms. However, it remains unclear whether these sex and age of onset differences can be detected in regular scales based on symptom traits. The comparition of symptoms between early-onset (male/female) and late-onset (male/female) Chinese MDD patients was performed in the present study.

Methods/Study protocol:

The present cross-sectional study was conducted in the psychiatric department of the sixth affiliated hospital at Kunming Medical University from Sep 2020 to Mar 2022. We recruited 229 outpatients with a first diagnosis of MDD. Two groups differed on seven-dimensional symptoms on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-24) in addition, correlations between seven-dimensional symptoms were compared across two groups. Principal components analysis (PCA) was conducted to assess sex, SAS and SDS differences between two groups.

Results:

Early-onset cases have a high score in Hopelessness score (p=0.049), whereas females have a higher score in Anxiety somatization score (p=0.005) and sleep disturbances（p=0.007），There was no significant symptom difference in symptoms between the groups and other symptoms.2.female(p＜0.01) and early-onset（p＜0.05）are risk factors for hopelessness in MDD, female（p＜0.05）is a risk factor of sleep disturbances in late-onset MDD, early-onset（p＜0.05）is a risk factor of cognitive impairment restrict in female in MDD. 3.we found no significant goodness of fit and predictive power in 4 groups categorized by year of onset.

Conclusion:

larger samples sizes in different regions and time periods with targeted cognitive questionnaire are warranted to redress the new nosology in early-onset MDD based on DUI in additional studies2.Late-onset female patients show less cognitive impairment and more sleep disorder.3.the female and early onset year are risk factors in the hopelessness score in cases of MDD.