[Quality of life in major depressive disorder: a cross-sectional study].

OBJECTIVE To investigate quality of life and its association with depression in patients with major depressive disorder. METHOD The study included 74 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder according to DSM-IV. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used to assess the severity of depression; and the, Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (MOS SF-36) and EuroQol 5-D (EQ-5D) were used to measure quality of life. RESULTS In the assessment of quality of life, it was determined that Patients with major depressive disorder scored significantly lower on all domains of MOS SF-36 compared to Turkish normative data. The depressive disorder patients had lower EQ-5D health utility index scores, in comparison to Turkish normative data. There was a significant negative correlation between mean HAM-D score and all domains of MOS SF-36 and EQ-5D health utility index scores. When quality of life in depressive patients was compared according to episode type, patients with recurrent type major depressive disorder had lower quality of life in terms of physical functioning, general health perception, and physical component summary score than patients with single episode type major depressive disorder. CONCLUSION All domains of quality of life were lower in patients with major depressive disorder and quality of life decreased as severity of depression increased. Physical health perception was impaired to a greater degree in patients with recurrent major depressive disorder when compared with single episode depressive patients.