The Correlations Among Severity of Depression, Level of Observed Expressed Emotions, Perceived Social Support and Psychosocial Functioning in Patients with Unipolar Depression

Abstract

Abstract The aims of the study were to examine the correlations among severity of depression, level of psychosocial functioning, level of observed expressed emotions and perceived social support in patients diagnosed with unipolar depression. The sample included 61 patients. The following study instruments were applied: the Beck Depression Inventory II, the Functioning Assessment Short Test, the Level of Expressed Emotion scale and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Descriptive statistics of the sample have shown the mean age of 42.39years (SD=13.387), moderate severity of depression (AS=22.7, SD=11.984), moderate level of observed expressed emotions (AS=74.70, SD=17.959), moderate level of psychosocial difficulties (AS=26.33, SD=17.207) and high level of perceived social support (AS=5.24, SD=1.395). There were significant positive correlations between severity of depression and psychosocial difficulties (r=0.69) and perceived social support (r=-0.42), as well as between psychosocial difficulties and both levels of observed expressed emotions (r=0.31) and perceived social support (r=- 0.53). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that 47.1% of the psychosocial functioning variance can be predicted by severity of depressive symptoms, and perceived social support explained the additional 7% of variance. The level of observed expressed emotion didn’t show an additional explanation of the psychosocial functioning variance. Our research showed that the severity of depressive symptoms and perceived social support predict difficulties in psychosocial functioning, while the level of observed expressed emotion was not an important predictor.