The Historical Aspect of Depressive Delusions Phenomenon Studies

Abstract

The aim: to provide an overview of domestic and international studies examining various aspects of issue of depressive delusional ideas in endogenous delusional depression disease patternMaterials and method: in order to compile a literature review for the keywords depressive delusions and delusional depressions, data from scientific articles posted in MedLine and PubMed databases as well as other bibliographic sources have been searched and analyzed during the formation of scientific psychiatry to the present.Discussion: based on the analysis of scientific publications, this paper presents data on the psychopathological description of depressive delusions and its relatedness to the depressive affect. The researchers’ viewpoints on primary and secondary characteristics of depressive delusions are being analyzed. We have identified pathogenetic characteristics of the latter that affect the prognostic assessment, such as features of the depressive triad in endogenous depression, severity and type of depressive affect, risk of suicidal behavior, characteristics of premorbid personality traits, genetic background, as well as therapeutic efficacy of treatment methods for depressive delusions in patients with delusional depression. This research reveals the controversial nature of some provisions of scientific publications that gradually divert from clinical diagnostic approaches, which tend to be replaced by psychological and psychoanalytic ones when carrying out prognostic assessment in cases of depressive delirium, which is characteristic of current psychiatric science.Conclusions: scientific publications data analysis testifies to the priority of the clinical and psychopathological method in studying the issues of depressive delusions structure in delusional depression disease pattern as well as in clinical differentiation of depressive delusions, justifies its clinical and prognostic value and enables to choose the treatment effectively.