Diagnosis of unipolar and bipolar depressions and their specifiers

Abstract

Depression is a common, recurrent and chronic disease with a high prevalence in the world population. It is a disease that affects the individual organism as a whole, affecting, in addition to mood, cognitive, neuroendocrine and physiological functions, impairing personal, social and laboral well-being. Depression is multifactorial (intrinsic and extrinsic etiology) and heterogeneous, because in addition of being unipolar or bipolar, there are specifiers (subtypes) of depression, each containing particuliarities in symptomathology. This review aimed to present the unipolar and bipolar depressions, as well as some of their specifiers, with their characteristics, diagnostic criteria, epidemiology, associated comorbidities and etiology; also presenting the importance of being done and how we can make the differential diagnosis between unipolar and bipolar depressions