Social Adjustment and Depression

Social and interpersonal maladjustments found in depressed women were reassessed over an eight-month follow-up and compared with normal controls. Overall, there was considerable improvement in social adjustment, but it occurred more slowly than that for symptoms and left some residual deficits. Symptomatic relapse was accompanied by rapid social worsening. Differential patterns were found in six factor-analytically derived dimensions of adjustment. Impaired work performance and anxious rumination, reflecting instrumental performance and subjective distress respectively, related most closely to symptomatic illness with greatest initial disturbance, rapid remission, and worsening on relapse.