Lithium and mood change in affective disorder patients.

The authors evaluated whether the dysphoric effects reported by normals given lithium in several recent studies might also be found in depressed patients if detailed self-ratings were used in a double-blind study design. Nine depressed patients were studied at the end of lithium and placebo treatment trials. No overall adverse effects of lithium were found for the entire group, but individuals showed significant inverse correlations between pretreatment dysphoria and depression and the development of these symptoms with lithium, i.e., the less dysphoric and depressed patients (the more "normal" individuals) did report more adverse symptoms while the patients with higher initial symptom scores rated themselves as improved.