Chronic depression of monopolar, endogenous type: with special reference to the premorbid personality, "Typus melancholicus".

We retrospectively examined 70 depressives, who first visited our outpatient clinic in 1989, agreed to our examination and met the criteria of major depression and melancholic type in DSM-III-R. Forty-nine recovered and 21 had a chronic course of a 2-year duration. Of the items examined in the multivariate analysis, a high total LE score, a long duration prior to entry and a high degree of "Typus melancholicus" greatly contributed to the chronicity in this order of magnitude. Age, severity at entry and sex contributed to it in relatively small degrees and familial loading of depression had almost no effect on the course. The relationship between the degree of "Typus melancholicus" and course of depression was discussed based on data.