An early separation of unipolar and bipolar depression is a diagnostic challenge even for the experienced psychiatrist because valid clinical distinguishing features are missing. Speed of onset of depression is a clinical variable implying marked differences between patients with unipolar and bipolar depression.The Onset of Depression Inventory (ODI) is a method for the assessment of this variable. The inventory could be helpful to subtype depressive disorders into more homogenous subgroups in the context of genetic and therapy studies.
Keywords
Onset of depression inventory - depressive episode - speed of onset - bipolar depression
