Family history of major depression and residual symptoms in responder and non-responder depressed patients

Background Little is known about the extent to which a family history of major depression (MD) affects residual depressive symptoms in responder and non-responder patients suffering from MD. Methods Nine hundred eighty-six patients with MD were recruited within the context of a large multicenter project. Information about the family history of MD, as well as about total depressive symptoms and specific depressive clusters, was collected and analyzed. Results No significant difference was observed in overall depressive symptoms between patients with and those without a family history of MD. However, non-responder patients with a family history of MD showed significantly higher scores in core symptoms as compared with responder patients without a family history of MD. Conclusions Non-responder MD patients with a positive family history of MD could represent a slightly different sub-group of MD patients with more consistent core depressive symptoms as compared with responder patients without a family history of MD. However, taking into account the retrospective assessment of data, the use of positive or negative family history as a dichotomous indicator of familial loading and the cross-sectional design of the present study, further research is needed to draw more definitive conclusions.