An Exploration of Depressive Symptoms in Hepatitis C Patients Taking Interferon-alpha: Increase in Sickness Behaviors but not Negative Cognitions.

OBJECTIVE

The most investigated adverse event associated with interferon-alpha (IFN-α) treatment is depressed mood, with many studies finding a significant increase in depression scale scores from baseline to treatment. This paper is concerned with exploring discrete categories of depressive symptoms (somatic, behavioral, negative cognitions and depressed mood) in order to explore the behavioral syndrome associated with IFN-α.

METHODS

Thirty-five Hepatitis C patients due to commence IFN-α treatment were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview (SCID), and the 24-item Hamilton Depression Inventory (HAM-D) at 0 and 8 weeks.

RESULTS

Somatic symptoms comprised the significant majority of scores across all weeks for patients taking IFN-α. Patients who developed a depression had significantly more somatic and mood symptoms at Week 8 than those patients who did not develop a depression.

CONCLUSIONS

These exploratory results indicate that the increase in raw depression scores is due to an increase in somatic and mood symptoms, rather than negative cognitions. However, this increase does not correspond to a proportional increase in a particular subscale. These results also indicate that development of an IFN-α-induced depression is due to mood symptoms rather than negative cognitions.