Talk:Major depressive episode

Untitled
What is that weepy milky-teared painting as an article photo? It's totally inappropriate and basically a bad piece of art. Not representative of anything but a naive artist's sense of evocative.

Pathological laughing and crying, crying and depression. Where is the best place to add? ==

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 November 2018 and 14 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cwa200. Peer reviewers: Doxy cycling.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
Symptoms of depression Crying easily or crying for no reason at all Zenhabit (talk) 11:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Good job, this article has turned out really good.Kokiri kid 23:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

"Treatment

If left untreated"... What about how to treat? Needs adding. 71.54.162.157 (talk) 01:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)penguify

exercise as a treatment?
In the lede it says that exercise is a treatment, in the body it's not mentioned. No citations are offered at the moment. Since exercise probably can't hurt, it's probably worth including -- but some citations on its efficacy would be good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.105.32.80 (talk) 21:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

cwa200's work plan
This article needs work in several different areas. I am going to prioritize the diagnosis and treatment sections. I'd like to add several sections as well including causes, mechanism/pathophysiology, and outcomes/prognosis.

Beginning with the lead section, more citations will strengthen what is already written. Citations are needed for the current symptoms that are listed and a citation is necessary for the first sentence discussing the cost of major depressive episodes. With more information added to the rest of the article, the lead paragraph will get better as it reflects the added information. Hopefully, at the end of editing, the lead paragraph will more fully give the reader a summary of what a major depressive episode is, how it is diagnosed, how it is treated, and the outcomes that are possible.

The signs and symptoms section is one of the strongest sections currently written. I will consider making the differentiation between typical and atypical symptoms of a major depressive episode but I will make this decision based on the sources I find. I would also like to find a way for this section to be more easy to read and to flow with the diagnosis section (a way for readers to go back and forth between the 2 sections with ease). This section also needs to explicitly differentiate the 9 symptoms of depression that are used as diagnostic criteria from the other possible signs and symptoms.

I would like to add a causes section that will include psychosocial, genetic, and organic causes of a major depressive episode without having too much overlap with the epidemiology section. This section will also include risk factors (including medical diagnoses) and potential triggers (including psychosocial events) for a major depressive episode.

A mechanism, or pathophysiology section, could be included as well. This section would include the leading theories, as reported by textbooks/secondary sources, of a major depressive episode and its mechanism.

The current diagnosis section needs the most work. As stated earlier, I would like to make this section flow with the signs and symptoms section so the viewer can go back and forth easily. A more clear explanation of how to diagnose a major depressive episode is needed (number of symptoms needed to diagnose, what the number of symptoms means for the diagnosis/prognosis). A better explanation of the differential diagnosis is also necessary (a list of potential diagnoses is needed, including major differences/how to rule these out). The current section does a good job of explaining exceptions in the diagnosis of a major depressive episode.

I will consider adding a prevention/screening section. There may not be enough for a whole section on this. There is currently one sentence about screening in the diagnosis section. If I can find more tools to screen for depression, I may add another sentence here.

The treatment section is a jumble right now. I would like to split the treatment section up into three categories: medical, therapeutic, and refractory treatment sections. This layout should make the section easier to read and navigate.

There is a comorbidities section currently. This could be combined with an outcomes/prognosis section. There is not a clear explanation for outcomes/prognosis currently in the article - my current ideas include the % of people who recover with and without treatment, likelihood of being refractory to treatment, suicide, etc.

I plan to change the demographics header to epidemiology. There is currently a good explanation of differences in epidemiology between males and females but I would like to add more in terms of race, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation. I may include the epidemiology of other risk factors that I first identified in the causes section.

If I have time, I would like to add a history section and society & culture section. There is already a good amount of work to do but these sections would not be lacking in references. History section could include historical references and historical treatments of major depressive episodes (going back to treatment of 'melancholy' in Ancient Egypt). Society & Culture could include references to depression in pop culture and famous figures who have suffered from major depressive episodes. A Research Directions section could also be added if I have time. There is a plethora of research being devoted to depression and mental illness so this could be an easy section to at least start on the page.

The current image and caption could be changed. If anything, the caption could give a better explanation of why the image is being used to describe a major depressive episode. Other image ideas could center around diagnosis (graphic that connects the signs/symptoms section and the diagnosis section), treatment (medication, therapy, other forms of treatment), or pathophysiology (image to show one of the schools of thought on what causes a depressive episode). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cwa200 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I have added a causes section that covers risk factors, triggers, and genetics. Planning to start work on the diagnosis and treatment sections next — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cwa200 (talk • contribs) 15:44, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Peer review
Overall, this article was well-written and easily understandable. It has a good, logical flow from symptoms through prognosis. I thought you did a good job of explaining medical terms when you included them, or providing links to other Wikipedia pages for more information. It seems to rely primarily on secondary sources, as well. I feel that this would be a great resource for patients to get the basics on a major depressive episode upon initial diagnosis.

I do have a couple of questions/suggestions for improvement. Firstly, I am a little uncertain as to why major depressive episode is a separate page from major depressive disorder, since my understanding is that the episode is just a manifestation of the disorder. It could be important to more clearly explain the difference between the two, especially since in the epidemiology section gives differing statistics when comparing MDD to a MDE.

Looking back at your work plan, it looks like you had thought about adding more to the causes section, and I agree that it could delve more into the neurotransmitters involved, etc. If I had to pick a section of the article that seems unbalanced in size with regard to the others, I would say this has room for lengthening.

I really like how easy the signs and symptoms section is to read with every “SIG E CAPS” separated out. However, given that Wikipedia seems to think there are too many section headers, could it be referring to this? I also noticed that you used the same 2 sources over and over again in this section. Obviously, the DSM-V is the best option for symptoms, but would Wikipedia be happier with more varied sources when possible?

In the treatment section, it could be a good clarifying point to explicitly say that physicians will keep patients on a trial drug for 4(?) weeks before trying another option. Since physicians face the challenge of patients self-discontinuing treatment early due to lack of efficacy, talking about the time course and treatment ladder could help a frustrated patient understand the process more.

Lastly, it could also be helpful to add more information on suicide, since a good number of suicides happen in the context of a major depressive episode. It seems like an important morbidity/mortality risk associated with depression. I don’t know whether it would best be included in epidemiology, or when you mention hospitalization maybe include that suicide risk is a factor in decision making.

All of the other specific issues you initially mentioned seem to have been fixed. Great article!Doxy cycling (talk) 04:11, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Too many subheadings tags
Probably the section that was flagged - the signs and symptoms section - is now consolidated (somewhat). Will come back to shortening it in a bit, but if someone could check whether that solves that particular problem it'd be appreciated. 267 08:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twosixtyseven (talk • contribs)