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Background: Chronotype reflects an individual's optimal daily timing of sleep, activity, and cognitive performance. Previous, cross-sectional, studies have suggested an age effect on chronotype with later chronotypes in adolescents and earlier chronotypes in children and elderly. Additionally, later chronotypes have been associated with more depressive symptoms. Few studies have been able to study longitudinal associations between chronotype and age, while adjusting for depressive symptoms., Methods: Chronotype was assessed twice with the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire 7 years apart in the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (T1: N = 1842, mean age (SD): 42.63 years (12.66)) and T2: N = 1829, mean age (SD) 50.67 (13.11)). The longitudinal association between change in age and change in chronotype was tested using a generalized estimated equation analysis adjusted for covariates (including level of depressive symptoms). Using age-bins of 5 years (age at T2), change in chronotype between T1 and T2 was analyzed with Linear Mixed Models., Results: We found a change towards an earlier chronotype with higher age (B (95% CI): -0.011 (-0.014-0.008), p < 0.001). For the age-bins, the difference in chronotype was significant for the 25-29 years age-bin., Limitations: The sample did not include individuals younger than 19 years or older than 68 years., Conclusions: In the whole sample chronotype changed towards becoming more morning-type over a period of 7 years, but this change was only significant for those aged 25-29 years. The study was performed in a large naturalistic cohort study with a wide age-range, including patients with a diagnosis of depressive and anxiety disorder and healthy controls., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Background: In a previous study which made a comparison between disorder-specific and generic instruments to assess outcome of treatments for depression, the Beck Depression Inventory, Second Edition (BDI-II) seemed to be more sensitive to change than the Inventory of Depressive Symptoms- Self Rating (IDS-SR)., Methods: A set with longitudinal data from Routine Outcome Monitoring (n=144) were analyzed with multilevel models with random intercepts. The sensitivity to change of two disorder-specific instruments, the BDI-II and the IDS-SR, were compared head to head., Results: The BDI-II was more sensitive to change when measuring treatment outcome compared to the IDS-SR. The BDI-II decreases significantly more over time than the IDS-SR: the average decrease per week for the IDS-SR is -.012 (95%CI -0.015, -0.009) and for the BDI-II it is -.017 (95%CI -0.021, -0.014)., Limitations: Conclusions can only be preliminary due to a small sample size., Conclusions: Treatment outcomes measured with questionnaires may differ depending on the degree of sensitivity to change of the instruments., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Chronotype is an individual's preferred timing of sleep and activity, and is often referred to as a later chronotype (or evening-type) or an earlier chronotype (or morning-type). Having an evening chronotype is associated with more severe depressive and anxiety symptoms. Based on these findings it is has been suggested that chronotype is a stable construct associated with vulnerability to develop depressive or anxiety disorders. To examine this, we test the stability of chronotype over 7 years, and its longitudinal association with the change in severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms., Methods: Data of 1,417 participants with a depressive and/or anxiety disorder diagnosis and healthy controls assessed at the 2 and 9-year follow-up waves of the Netherlands Study of depression and anxiety were used. Chronotype was assessed with the Munich chronotype questionnaire. Severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed with the inventory of depressive symptomatology and Beck anxiety inventory., Results: Chronotype was found to be moderately stable (r = 0.53) and on average advanced (i.e., became earlier) with 10.8 min over 7 years (p < .001). Controlling for possible confounders, a decrease in severity of depressive symptoms was associated with an advance in chronotype (B = 0.008, p = .003). A change in severity of anxiety symptoms was not associated with a change in chronotype., Conclusion: Chronotype was found to be a stable, trait-like construct with only a minor level advance over a period of 7 years. The change in chronotype was associated with a change in severity of depressive, but not anxiety, symptoms., (© 2020 The Authors. Depression and Anxiety published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Background: Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) may enhance individual treatment and is also advocated as a means to compare the outcome of different treatment programs or providers. There is debate on the optimal instruments to be used for these separate tasks., Methods: Three sets with longitudinal data from ROM were analyzed with correlational analysis and repeated measures ANOVAs, allowing for a head-to-head comparison of measures regarding their sensitivity to detect change. The responsiveness of three disorder-specific instruments, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Inventory of Depressive Symptoms, and the Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire, was compared to three generic instruments, the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90), the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45), and the Brief Symptom Inventory, respectively., Results: In two of the three datasets, disorder-specific measures were more responsive compared to the total score on generic instruments. Subscale scores for depression embedded within generic instruments are second best and almost match disorder-specific scales in responsiveness. No evidence of a desynchronous response on outcome measures was found., Limitations: The present study compares measures head-to-had, and responsiveness is not assessed against an external criterion, such as clinical recovery., Discussion: Disorder-specific measures yield the most precise assessment for individual treatment and are recommended for clinical use. Generic measures may allow for comparisons across diagnostic groups and their embedded subscales approach the responsiveness of disorder-specific measures., (© 2018, The Authors. Depression and Anxiety published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Social jetlag, the misalignment between the internal clock and the socially required timing of activities, is highly prevalent, especially in people with an evening chronotype and is hypothesized to be related to the link between the evening chronotype and major depressive disorder. Although social jetlag has been linked to depressive symptoms in non-clinical samples, it has never been studied in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). This study is aimed to study social jetlag in patients with major depressive disorder and healthy controls, and to further examine the link between social jetlag and depressive symptomatology. Patients with a diagnosis of MDD (n = 1084) and healthy controls (n = 385), assessed in a clinical interview, were selected from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety. Social jetlag was derived from the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire, by calculating the absolute difference between the midsleep on free days and midsleep on work days. Depression severity was measured with the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology. It was found that patients with MDD did not show more social jetlag compared to healthy controls, neither in a model without medication use (β = 0.06, 95% CI: -0.03-0.15, p = 0.17) nor in a model where medication use is accounted for. There was no direct association between the amount of social jetlag and depressive symptoms, neither in the full sample, nor in the patient group or the healthy control group. This first study on social jetlag in a clinical sample showed no differences in social jetlag between patients with MDD and healthy controls.

Background: Increasingly, health insurance companies are asking for treatment results in mental health care to be expressed in actual numbers. They base their request on the data supplied by sbg (Stichting Benchmark ggz) and the procedures that sbg has followed. For the purpose of benchmarking, the sbg has accepted a limited number of questionnaires. These tools are not suitable for performing routine outcome monitoring (rom) in clinical practice. There is a urgent need for these questionnaires to be replaced by a widely-used depression questionnaire, namely the ids., Aim: To present arguments supporting the view that the ids is an excellent and useful instrument that the sbg should accept as a measuring tool., Method: We discuss the quality of the ids by reviewing the literature., Results: The ids is a high quality instrument well suited for measuring the severity of depressions and also is sufficiently sensitive for measuring mood improvements.
, Conclusion: The ids is an excellent tool for performing rom measurements and is available free of charge. The authors argue that the sbg should accept this questionnaire as a suitable instrument for benchmarking.

The use of placebos in an investigation into the efficacy of a new type of treatment for winter depression was not approved by a medical ethics committee because some test subjects receiving placebos might thereby be deprived of an effective treatment. According to the authors, the committee's decision constituted an impediment to research and prevented a thorough investigation of a possible new type of treatment. In this essay it is argued that the use of placebos in depression research is ethically acceptable.

Background: The Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) is a frequently used screening instrument in the research on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Nevertheless, studies on its reliability and validity are relatively scarce. In the present study the reliability and the contrast validity of the SPAQ are investigated., Methods: SAD patients, selected by means of a clinical interview, non-seasonal depressed out-patients, non-depressed out-patients, and a control group, are contrasted to estimate the discriminating power of the SPAQ. Also, the reliability and factor structure of the seasonality and the climate subscales are investigated. To study food intake the Seasonal Food Preference Questionnaire (SFPQ) was developed., Results: The SAD criterion of the SPAQ shows good specificity (94%), but a low sensitivity (44%). Discriminant analysis shows sufficient ability to classify subjects (81% correctly classified). The Global Seasonality Scale has a good internal consistency. It consists of two factors, a psychological factor and a food factor. The SFPQ is sensitive for carbohydrate intake by SAD patients., Limitations: Most SAD patients had received treatment and completed the SPAQ while they were not depressed, which may have influenced the sensitivity., Conclusions: The SPAQ is not sensitive enough to be considered a diagnostic instrument for SAD. Nevertheless, it is accurate enough to be used as a screenings instrument. The only false positives were found in the depressive group. The accuracy of prevalence Figs. can be improved by completion of the SPAQ in the summer months, combined with the completion of a depression scale., (Copyright 2003 Elsevier B.V.)

In three children, boys of 5 and 13 years old and a girl aged 10, seasonal affective disorder was diagnosed based on mood changes (listlessness, fears) and increased sleepiness in the winter season. They were treated successfully with light therapy (5 consecutive days 30 min 10,000 lux of full spectrum light without ultraviolet). In two patients the disorder recurred in the fall/winter the year(s) thereafter, and they were again treated successfully.

The role of cognitive sensitivity to light in the development of seasonal affective disorder (SAD, winter type) was studied by comparing 29 SAD patients during remission with 29 non-depressed controls matched by sex and age, and by relating measures for cognitive sensitivity of remitted SAD patients to the onset of a depressive episode during the following autumn/winter. To ensure that only cognitive processes were involved, the subjects were exposed to symbolic light. Three schematic drawings of ambiguous faces expressing different emotions were embedded in light or dark backgrounds for this purpose. The subjects rated the various facial expressions with respect to the degree of elation-sadness, rejection-invitation, and activation-sleepiness. SAD patients saw larger differences in activation between faces embedded in light and dark backgrounds than controls, perceiving less activation in faces with dark backgrounds. Furthermore, the larger the difference that SAD patients saw in invitation between faces with light and dark backgrounds, the earlier they became depressed in the subsequent autumn/winter. Only the SAD patients who became depressed early (before December 21) differed from controls in the perception of invitation. Results are interpreted within the framework of psychological theories on the development of depression and suggest that altered cognitive sensitivity of SAD patients to light plays a role in the development of depressive episodes.

Background Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is characterized by recurrent episodes of major depression with a seasonal pattern, treated with light therapy (LT). Duration of light therapy differs. This study investigates retrospectively whether a single week of LT is as effective as two weeks, whether males and females respond differently, and whether there is an effect of expectations as assessed before treatment. Methods 83 women, and 25 men received either one-week (n=42) or two weeks (n=66) of LT were included in three studies. Before LT, patients׳ expectations on therapy response were assessed. Results Depression severity was similar in both groups before treatment (F(1,106)=0.19ns) and decreased significantly during treatment (main effect "time" F(2,105)=176.7, p<0.001). The speed of therapy response differs significantly in treatment duration, in favor of 1 week (F(2,105)=3.2, p=0.046). A significant positive correlation between expectations and therapy response was found in women (ρ=0.243, p=0.027) and not in men (ρ=-0.154,ns). When expectation was added as a covariate in the repeated-measures analysis it shows a positive effect of the level of expectation on the speed of therapy response (F(2,104)=4.1, p=0.018). Limitations A limitation is the retrospective design. Conclusions There is no difference between 1 and 2 weeks of LT in overall therapy outcome, but the speed of therapy response differed between 1 week LT and 2 weeks LT. Together with the significant correlation between expectations and therapy response in women, we hypothesize that expectations play a role in the speed of therapy response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]