Prediction of Outcome in Anxiety States and Depressive Illnesses

Abstract

In a number of previous papers in this series (Roth et al., 1972; Gurney et al., 1972; Kerr et al., 1972; Schapira et al., 1972) evidence was adduced to suggest that depressive illnesses and anxiety states could be clinically differentiated from one another. It was shown also that with the aid of appropriate statistical techniques patients exhibiting these disorders could be separated into two distinct groups with relatively little overlap. The possibility that these findings were due to diagnostic preconceptions or other forms of bias was excluded by the results of follow-up studies conducted over an average period of 3.8 years in which the outcome of the entire patient population was evaluated by independent observers. The clinical picture found was consistent over the period of observation, with little diagnostic interchange between the groups. Moreover, the outcome of the depressions was significantly better than that of the anxiety states, and this provided external and independent validation of the view that the groups initially separated with the aid of clinical observation were indeed distinct from one another.