A study of the dexamethasone suppression test in hospitalized depressed patients

Abstract

Patients (90) with a primary depressive illness, admitted consecutively to 1 psychiatric ward were studied. All patients had the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) done before initial treatment. First treatment response was correlated with the DST results. The nonsuppressors, as a group, improved with treatment better than the suppressors. Unlike previous studies, no relationship was found between nonsuppression and poor response to antidepressant medication.