Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2017 June, 242(2)

Clinical Characteristics and Psychotropic Prescribing Patterns Associated with impaired Concentration in Asians with Depressive Disorders: The REAP-AD Study

SEON-CHEOL PARK,¹ MIN-SOO LEE,² SANG WOO HAHN,³ SHIGENOBU KANBA,⁴ MIAN-YOON CHONG,⁵ KOK YOON CHEE,⁶ PICHET UDOMRATN,⁷ ADARSH TRIPATHI,⁸ NORMAN SARTORIUS,⁹ NAOTAKA SHINFUKU,10 ANDI J TANRA1¹ and YONG CHON PARK¹²

¹Department of Psychiatry, Inje University College of Medicine and Haeundae Paik Hospital, Busan, South Korea
²Department of Psychiatry, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
³Department of Psychiatry, Soonchunhyang University Seoul Hospital, Seoul, South Korea
⁴Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan
⁵Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chiayi, and Chang Gung University School of Medicine, Taiwan
⁶Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Tunku Abdul Rahman Institute of Neuroscience, Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
⁷Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand
⁸King George's Medical University, Chowk, Lucknow, India
⁹Association for the Improvement of Mental Health Programs, Geneva, Switzerland
¹⁰Department of Social Welfare, School of Human Sciences, Seinan Gakuin University, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan
¹¹Department of Psychiatry, Hasanuddin University Faculty of Medicine, Makassar, Sulawesi Selatan, Indonesia
¹²Department of Neuropsychiatry, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Guri, South Korea

The Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns for Antidepressants (REAP-AD) study aimed to survey and review antidepressant prescribing patterns in different clinical settings in Asian countries/areas. The REAP-AD study collected comprehensive data for psychiatric patients prescribed antidepressants in 10 Asian countries/areas during the period from March to June 2013. Depressive disorders have been an important issue closely associated with ill-health and disability in the realm of mental health. Impaired concentration was found to be a consistent symptom in depressive disorders regardless of clinical course, and a predictor of poor treatment outcome. In this work we aimed to identify clinical characteristics independently associated with impaired concentration in patients with depressive disorders, using data from the REAP-AD study. A total of 336 depressive disorder patients with impaired concentration and 786 depressive disorder patients without impaired concentration were recruited from 40 centers in 10 Asian countries/areas. A binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify the independent correlates of impaired concentration in patients with depressive disorders. After adjusting the effects of covariates, the binary logistic model showed that impaired concentration was independently associated with higher rates of loss of interest (P < 0.0001), fatigue (P < 0.0001), low self-confidence (P < 0.0001) and appetite disturbance (P < 0.0001) and with a lower rate of adjunctive antipsychotic prescription (P = 0.007). Our findings suggest that impaired concentration and its associated depressive symptom profiles constitute a unitary depressive symptom cluster that is also an intervening variable for poor social function.

keywords —— Asian; depressive disorders; impaired concentration; social function; symptom cluster

© 2017 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2017, 242, 151-156

Correspondence: Yong Chon Park, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Neuropsychiatry, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, 249-1 Gyomun-dong, Guri 11923, South Korea.

e-mail: hypyc@hanyang.ac.kr