The symptom trajectories to clinical remission in Chinese patients with unipolar major depressive disorder.

There is little understanding of how unipolar major depressive disorder (UMDD) symptoms evolve in response to antidepressant treatment. The present research examined the associations between symptom trajectories and clinical remission in Chinese patients with UMDD. A total of 165 outpatients with UMDD received treatment of fluoxetine (20 mg/day) for 6 weeks and were assessed for symptom severity at weeks 1, 2, 4, and 6. We found that patients with UMDD show heterogeneity in treatment response to fluoxetine. Psychomotor retardation is a prominent symptom during the 6 weeks of assessment, and its severity at baseline is negatively associated with clinical remission.