Ansseau M
Unité de Psychiatrie, C.H.U. du Sart Tilman, Liège, Belgique.
Encephale. 1993 Aug;19 Spec No 3:441-4.
According to recent European epidemiological studies, the lifetime prevalence of major depression ranges between 16 and 20%. Information concerning the natural course of depressive illness remain limited. Longitudinal studies of depressed patients are impeded by the inconsistencies of the labelling of change points in the course of illness (remission, recovery, relapse, recurrence...) and of criteria used to define each of them. Recently, definitions of these terms have been proposed but still need to be clinically validated. Internationally accepted definitions are particularly necessary in order to assess the efficacy of antidepressants at 3 levels: during the acute treatment of an episode, for maintenance treatment (recovery from the complete length of an episode) and for prophylactic treatment (reduction of the risk of future episodes).
根据近期欧洲的流行病学研究，重度抑郁症的终生患病率在16%至20%之间。关于抑郁症自然病程的信息仍然有限。对抑郁症患者的纵向研究受到疾病过程中变化点（缓解、康复、复发、再发……）标记以及用于定义每个变化点的标准不一致的阻碍。最近，已经提出了这些术语的定义，但仍需要进行临床验证。为了在三个层面评估抗抑郁药的疗效，国际公认的定义尤为必要：在发作的急性治疗期间、维持治疗期间（从整个发作期康复）以及预防性治疗期间（降低未来发作的风险）。
