Depression in general practice attenders.

The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale was used to study depressive symptoms in 251 people routinely attending their general practitioners. Lower social class and female sex were weak predictors of higher Zung scores. Sociodemographic influences on responses to particular Zung scale items are reported. Using a cut-off score of 40, 53 subjects (21%) were found to be significantly depressed (24% of females and 15% of males) with the point prevalence data for males and females being strikingly similar to data obtained in another Sydney general practice study using a differing methodology. Zung scale scores of our subjects were compared with those of 43 neurotic depressive patients assessed at initial psychiatric referral. While the total Zung scores of the two groups were very similar, depressives in the general practice sample scored as having a less marked mood disturbance, were less irritable, were less likely to cry and less likely to report weight loss. We suggest that either these symptoms may be less severe in general practice 'cases' than in 'cases' of depression referred to a psychiatrist, or that differences reflect demographic differences of the samples.