Residual Symptoms in Major Depressive Disorder: Prevalence, Effects, and Management

Click to enlarge page

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who have responded to or remitted from antidepressant treatment frequently have persistent residual symptoms (eg, fatigue, sleep problems, cognitive symptoms) that interfere with their functioning and quality of life and significantly increase the risk of relapse. Clinicians need to systematically evaluate for all depressive symptoms at baseline, so that some are not missed and the individual patient’s symptoms can be tracked across all phases of treatment. Developing a list of target problems that the patient would like to see improve is a helpful tool in this process.