HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSION WHO ARE TREATED WITH MOCLOBEMIDE

A total of 651 depressed patients completed self-administered health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) questionnaires during treatment with moclobemide in order to evaluate whether general and psychopathology-specific HRQOL questionnaires could detect changes in depressed patients receiving treatment. Patients were treated with moclobemide on an outpatient basis over an 8-week period; questionnaires were completed at weeks 0, 2, 4, and 8. At each assessment, patients completed one of two HRQOL questionnaires: namely, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), a psychopathology-specific HRQOL questionnaire, or the Short-Form 36 (SF-36), a general HRQOL instrument. Physicians were randomized to one of the two HRQOL questionnaires for all of their patients. Because the French version of the SF-36 was not available in the public domain, the patients of all Francophone physicians completed the GHQ, whereas the patients enrolled by Anglophone physicians completed either the SF-36 or the GHQ. The GHQ provides an overall score that measures the emotional dimensions of HRQOL, whereas the SF-36 provides scores in the following eight domains: physical functioning (PF), physical role functioning (PRF), emotional role functioning (ERF), social functioning CSF), bodily pain (BP), mental health (MH), vitality (VT), and general health perceptions (GHP). The GHQ and seven domains of the SF-36 detected a statistically significant linear trend (improvement) over time (p < 0.05). The change in the BP domain of the SF-36 was not statistically significant (p = 0.29). The greatest improvements from week 0 to week 8 occurred in the GHQ (41 to 45%) and the ERF (88 to 109%), SF (52 to 54%), MH (43 to 45%), and VT (27 to 39%) domains of the SF-36. A total of 190 patients (29%) did not complete all 8 weeks of the trial. HBQOL results for ''completers only'' and ''all patients'' did not differ during the early portion of the study, with the exception of the PF and GHP domains of the SF-36, which differed slightly. However, results for patients who dropped out were not available for the latter part of the 8-week period.