Evaluation of the soscial cogniton and the qualty of life in adolescent patients diagnosed with major depression

ABSTRACT Introduction: Depression is a common psychiatric disorder in children and adolescents that leads to loss of functionality in many life areas and mainly characterized by symptoms such as depressive mood, unhappiness, irritability and inability to enjoy activities of daily life. Social functional disability occur in depressive disorder adversely affect both the progression of disease and the quality of life. The studies conducted in recent years about social cognitive skills in depressive disorders point to importance of social cognition in both etiology and treatment strategies. Though the social cognition is a very broad concept and divided into various domains, it can be basically defined as the ability of recognition, comprehension, interpretation and using of informations related social processes. Recent studies suggest that poor social functioning in depression may be associated with impairment in social cognitive skills. Several studies conducted in adults have reported that one of most studied domain of social cognition, theory of mind is impaired in various stage of depression. Theory of mind can be basically defined as the ability of understanding and judging the mental state of ownself and other people correctly. Objective: In our cross-sectionall study the objective was evaluating first epizod untreated depressed 13-18 years old adolescents in terms of social cognitive skills and quality of life, investigating the relation between characteristics of depression, social cognitive skills and quality of life and comparing with healthy controls. Methods: Our study sample is consisted of 35 patients who attended to the Ege University School of Medicine, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department outpatient clinic, were between 13-18 years, untreated, diagnosed with first epizod depressive disorder and 37 healthy controls who have similar demographic characteristics of patients. Firstly all cases were evaluated with K-SADS in order to assess comorbid conditions according to DSM-IV criteria. Beck Depression Scale for measuring depression scores, Childhood Anxiety Screening Scale (SCARED) (Parent and Child Form) for measuring anxiety scores, Clinical Global Impression Scale-Severity (CGI-S) to determine the severity of disease, Quality of Life Scale (Child and Family Forms) (PedsQL) to assess the quality of life, Face Test and Eye Test for the evaluation of social cognitive skill theory of mind were applied to the volunteers who fulfilled the required criteria. Results: In comparison of depression group with healthy control group, there were no statistically significant difference in face test and eye test that assess social cognitive skills. In terms of quality of life scores and anxiety scores, depresion group have obtained significantly worse scores and there were negative correlation for quality of life scores with depression scores and anxiety scores. Conclusion: Though the literature on social cognition and depression reports that social conitive skills are impaired in depressive adults, in our study which is conducted in adolescent population, we found no significant difference between depressive group and healty control group in the tests applied to evaluate the theory of mind. However this is one of the first study conducted since we know in this age group, further researches about that issue will be helpful for better understanding and interpretation. Impairment of quality of life in depression and its relations with the variety of features of depression have been demonstrated in our study. These findings point and emphasize the importance of the case based evaluation and determination of features of depression in regards of more effective treatment approaches and better qualty of life for patients.