Possible Bipolar Nature of Irritability in Major Depressive Disorder

Article AbstractBecause this piece has no abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.Sir: Perlis et al.1 found that irritability was present in 40% ofoutpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The findingmirrors DSM-IV-TR,2 which lists irritability not only as a coresymptom of mania and hypomania, but also as a commonsymptom of MDD. Kraepelin3 classified irritability as a manic(excitement) symptom. The bipolar nature of irritability inMDD can have an important impact on treatment of MDD.Although a study4 on MDD with irritability showed that fluoxetinewas effective in reducing irritability, clinical observationssuggest adding mood-stabilizing agents to antidepressantsin MDD with irritability because antidepressants alone mayworsen irritability.5-9†‹