Factor analytic study of depressive disorders

Abstract

Factor analysis was performed on 39 variables (symptoms and characteristics) of a diagnostically heterogenous population of depressive patients (N = 200). The results indicated the existence of one general factor that groups together “endogenomorphous” symptoms and characteristics and three others that are associated with three subtypes of depressive disorderspsychotic, anxiety, and retarded depression. The 13 variables that have high loadings with the first factor agree with widely known facts about the structure of the axial syndrome of endogenous depression. Copyright © 1989 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company