Major depressive disorder severity and the frequency of painful physical symptoms: a pooled analysis of observational studies

Objective:This retrospective post-hoc analysis of observational studies assesses the frequency of painful physical symptoms (PPS) in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) of varied severity as may be seen in clinical practice.Methods:Observational studies of MDD that collected a clinician-reported measure of depression severity and included assessment of PPS were screened for this individual patient-level analysis. Six observational studies were included that enrolled outpatients with a diagnosis of MDD (assessed using the 17-item Hamilton depression scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale–Depression, or Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology). Measures of PPS were based on the original study assessment (modified Somatic Symptom Inventory [SSI] and Visual Analogue Scale [VAS]). Patients were divided into analysis cohorts based on the presence or absence of PPS. To model PPS status, odds ratios were calculated from logistic regression for cross-sectional analysis (main analysis) and ge...