Factor affecting Time-to-Recovery from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD): Case Study at Jimma University Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract Background Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is depression that leads to disability and know days it is ranked as the 3rd burden of disease through the whole world and predicted to be 1st at 2030. Despite majority of MDD patients delay recovery during treatment, factor affecting time to recovery is unstudied. Hence, the main objective of this study was to explore the factors that affect time to recovery of MDD patients. Methods The data was taken from Jimma University Specialized Hospital (JUSH), South West Ethiopia. The retrospective study design was used. The time until the recovery of 204 patients chart were checked for 3 year follow up period from January 2018 to January 2021. The AFT models were employed after checking the restrictive assumption of Cox-PH model. Result Then, the study resulted, 134 (66%) were recovered and 70(34%) censored out of 204 patients. The median recovery time of the patients was 31 months but it varies depending on the covariates included in the study. Weibull AFT model was selected as the best model based on AIC. Accordingly, MDD patients of age: \(\ge 57 (\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=1.61[95\text{\%}: 1.12, 2.32\left]\right)\), marital status: widowed \((\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=1.61[95\text{\%}: 1.28, 2.04\left]\right)\), and substance use: yes \((\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=1.31[95\text{\%}: 1.12, 1.52\left]\right)\) had significantly prolonged time to recovery relative to their reference group 18–30 age, single marital status and no substance use respectively and MDD patients of sex: male \((\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=0.75[95\text{\%}: 0.66, 0.84\left]\right)\), education level: high school \((\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=0.69[95\text{\%}: 0.53, 0.88\left]\right)\) and college & above \((\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=0.55[95\text{\%}: 0.42, 0.71\left]\right)\) and living style: not alone \((\widehat{{\upvarphi }}=0.77[95\text{\%}: 0.67, 0.89\left]\right)\) had significantly shorten time to recovery relative to their reference group sex: female, education level: illiterate and living style: alone respectively. Conclusion In conclusion, the finding of this study showed that age, sex, marital status, education level, living style and status of substance use were major factors affecting recovery time of MDD patients. It is recommended to make interventions based on these factors.