Am J Psychiatry 1978; 135:797-800
Copyright © 1978 by American Psychiatric Association
Personality and the prediction of long-term outcome of depression
MM Weissman, BA Prusoff and GL Klerman
In a follow-up study of 150 women who had undergone treatment on an
outpatient basis for acute depression, it was found that the most important
predictor of their long-term clinical outcome (8, 20, and 48 months after
the acute episode) was personality as measured by the Neuroticism Scale of
the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI-N). Age, race, social class,
marital status, religion, number of previous depressions or suicide
attempts, diagnosis, history of early deaths of or separations from
significant others, history of neurotic traits as a child, amount and type
of stress in the 6 months before onset, and severity and pattern of
pretreatment symptoms were not predictive of outcome.
