Active clinical trials for "Depression"

People report feeling sad and low (depression) or worried (anxiety) appear more likely to subsequently suffer a heart attack, or angina. However it is not known whether depression or anxiety actually causes heart disease. If these mental health problems and heart disease were cause and effect this has important implications for world health. Previous research on this topic has had several limitations. First, most studies have studied heart disease as if it were one thing. There is a need for studies which distinguish different types of heart disease (e.g. different types of heart attack, angina) which may be linked to mental health problems in different ways. Second, it is not clear whether symptoms of heart disease come before the depression or anxiety or the other way round? Much of the available research cannot look at this in detail because they rely on data from occasional snapshots of study populations rather than a continuous record. The investigators propose to use the linkage of the national registry of coronary events to general practice records in the GPRD, which will allow us to address these limitations. The investigators research will help us understand better whether mental health problems cause the onset of different types of coronary disease.

Major depression is accompanied by cognitive changes as well as alterations in multiple physical functions. The inflammatory system is altered generally toward a pro-inflammatory state. Antidepressants are associated with a decrease in this proinflammatory state. This study aims to generate pilot data concerning a possible link between cognition, inflammation and response to treatment. The cognitive function of subjects with major depression will be tested before and after treatment with duloxetine. Inflammatory markers will be measured at both time points.

Objective There is growing evidence showing a relation between depression, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cardiovascular disease (1), serum lipid profile (2,3) and body weight (4), as well as the effects of some of the antidepressant medications on these various conditions and profiles. The aim of the study is to examine the influence of antidepressant medications on the metabolic profiles (5) of patients suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Group of patients: 30 Patients aged 18-65, who were diagnosed with MDD according to the DSM-IV criteria. Research Design and Methods: Research duration will be 8 weeks. Patients meeting the inclusion criteria will be recruited after being diagnosed with MDD and having undertaken the HDRS. A follow-up HDRS will be taken at weeks 4 and 8. The psychiatric evaluation will be held by a resident in psychiatry. The following metabolic parameters will be examined at base-line and at the end of the 8 weeks: Weight, height, waist circumference, body mass index (BMI: (Weight in Kg/(Height in meters)2), sitting blood pressure (after 3 minutes of sitting). Serum lipid profile (performed in Ziv hospital's chemistry lab): Low density lipoprotein cholesterol, High density Lipoprotein cholesterol, Triglycerides, Total cholesterol, Apolipoprotein level (Apo AI, Apo B, Apo E, Apo AII). Fasting glucose and insulin blood levels, in order to evaluate insulin-release and resistance, according to the following formulas: Insulin Resistance: HOMA IR=Fasting glucose (mg/dL)x Fasting insulin (mmol/L)/405 Insulin Release: HOMA-β={360xfasting insulin (mmol/L)}/{glucose(mg/dL)-63} Serum oxidative stress parameters according to the F2-Isoprostane kit will be measured. Malonylaialdehyde (MDA) content in serum will be analyzed by the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances assay, which measures malondialdehyde equivalent (13). Conjugated dienes will be measured at 234nm (14, 15).

The primary goal of this study is to compare a new symptoms rating questionnaire, called the Vancouver Semi-Structured Interview for Depression (V-SID), to the traditionally used questionnaires. The investigators predict that the V-SID will be more sensitive to patients' improvement than are traditional questionnaires.

Major depression disorder (MDD) has high estimated lifetime prevalence rates of 16.6%. Currently, the diagnosis for the MDD mainly depends on patients' reports of symptoms, observed behaviors and disease course. Establishment of clinically useful biomarkers for the MDD diagnosis would enhance patient management and treatment effect, and lead to the therapies adjusted to the individual. However, no such biomarkers have been established up to now. Therefore, the development of objective and feasible biomarkers is of special significance and a great challenge for accurate and early diagnosis and treatment of depression, in order to overcome the limitations of relying on clinical interviews alone.The ability to correctly recognize emotional states from faces is instrumental for interpersonal engagement and social functioning. Impairments processing of facial emotional expressions and biased facial emotion detection are frequently found in the MDD patients. To date, the studies on neural mechanism of the facial emotion recognition of the MDD patients were mainly based on the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has not been applied for the facial emotion recognition for the depression patients up to now. To bridge the important gap in the literature, we used the fNIRS methodology to investigate the neural mechanisms of facial emotion recognition for the patients with depression. We hypothesize the physiological feature of the hemodynamic responses in prefrontal cortex measured by fNIRS under the task of face emotion recognition, including the difference of the median, the Mayer wave power, the mean cross wavelet coefficient, and the mean wavelet coherence coefficient, combined with the behavior measurement (behavior accuracy and response time), could provide a reliable and feasible diagnosis approach to differentiate patients with the MDD from healthy control (HC) subjects with acceptable sensitivity and specificity.

It is recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Committee on Obstetric Practice that all obstetricians screen each women for postpartum depression and anxiety with a validated instrument. Although much effort is made, the contributing factors still lack in the literature due to its multi-factorial nature and complexity. In addition, the effects of prenatal education classes remain understudied. Therefore, this study aims to demonstrate the prevalence, characteristics and contributing factors of the postpartum depression. In addition, the change in prevalence and characteristics of the postpartum depression among women who had prenatal classes and not will also be assessed.

The study is designed as an open label, one arm study. Up to 30 eligible patients will be enrolled, for whom the Predictix Antidepressant Software tool will be used when prescribed with a medication for their Major Depressive Disorder, by their treating physician. Visits will include the completion of several questionnaires designed to answer the study objectives, either as self-reported by the subjects and/ or by the clinician.

Community health workers (CHWs) have successfully used Motivational Interviewing (MI) to improve treatment adherence (i.e. taking medications and attending clinic appointments) for patients with depression in the US and globally. Mobile health (mHealth) tools can address challenges in implementing MI by providing real-time support in the community and facilitating ongoing coaching and supervision for CHWs, as these two challenges currently impede CHWs' ability to use MI. The investigators will develop then test a new mHealth app, which can potentially be used in the US and abroad, to help CHWs receive decision-support for MI and capture consented audio recordings of patient interactions for review and feedback by facility-based nurses with MI expertise.

The objective of this transversal study is to determine if there is a difference in the volume of the hippocampus with the degree of anxiety.

Chinese Medicine syndrome differentiation has been a prevalent therapy in China for thousands of years. It is based on patients' symptoms, pulse, tongue and coating on the tongue. Therefore, the syndrome of patients and corresponding Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) may vary. This multicenter prospective cohort studies the efficiency and safety of TCM compared with antidepressants. A total number of 4600 cases with primary depression are expected to be collected and divided into 3 cohorts based on the patients' requirement and choices. Patients in one group will receive TCM, and patients in the other two groups will respectively receive antidepressants only and integrated treatment of TCM and antidepressants. This study has 2 phases: treating period and the follow-up. The main purpose of this long-term study is to evaluate the efficiency of TCM compared with antidepressants in reducing relapse and suicide rate, changing lifestyle, improving patient compliance as well as the safety.