Stressful life events associated with endogenous depression.

This study addresses the longstanding clinical impression that episodes of endogenous depression have less relationship to environmental stress than episodes of nonendogenous depression. Stress levels of 100 Research Diagnostic Criteria-assessed psychiatric inpatients are retrospectively assessed for the period immediately before episode onset and for an earlier, baseline period. Although pre-episode stress levels are higher in nonendogenous depressed patients than in endogenous depressed patients or psychiatric controls, this difference is due to a higher baseline level in the nonendogenous group. Compared longitudinally, all three groups show an equivalent increase in stressful events from the baseline to pre-episode period.