Relevance of Anger and Irritability in Outpatients with Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract

In depressive disorders, there are psychopathological dimensions other than depressed mood and anxiety that deserve greater clinical recognition and research. Our study suggests that one of these symptom clusters includes anger, irritability, aggressiveness, and hostility. The relevance of this dimension was not related to concurrent pharmacological treatment. Misdiagnosis of bipolar II disorder is also unlikely to explain our findings. Possibly, personality factors might at least partly explain the occurrence of anger and aggressiveness in several depressed patients. Attachment theory suggests that anger might also be conceived as part of the protest-despair-detachment reaction to a loss, either actual or symbolic.