CLINICAL FEATURES OF SOMATIZED DEPRESSION FOR VARIOUS COURSE OF AFFECTIVE DISEASE ACCORDING TO GENDER OF THE PATIENT

Abstract

The purpose of the investigation was to clarify the importance of gender factor in the clinical picture of recurrent (RD) and bipolar depression (BD) with somatization. Total of 99 patients had taken part in the testing including 70 (70.7 %) women and 39 (39.3 %) men. The general trend identified was intensive anxious and somatized signs in clinical structure of depression. In comparison with the men the female patients with RD had predominantly "psychic" and "physical" signs of anxiety, and men had more "typical" traits (depressive somatization). In the clinical picture of BD gender differentiation had shown the signs of anxiety again. In other words, the women with BD had mostly the signs of "mental" anxiety and neurosal (phobic anxiety and hysterical conversion) somatized signs, while male patients with BD more often had vegetal equivalents of anxiety (anxiety disorder) making hypochondriac ideational abnormalities (ideational somatization) in combination with physical signs of depression. In both testing groups women had the common traits - frequent complaints about paracenesthesia over extended periods (SSI); it can show some inclination to formation of a morbid personality, exacerbating a patient's condition. The findings indicate that gender differentiation expresses mainly in bipolar course of an affective disease in the clinical picture of somatized depression. The study outcome suggests the improvement of diagnostics and somatized depression treatment.

Keywords

• affective disorders
• somatization
• bipolar depression
• recurrent depression
• gender