Emotional blunting in patients with depression. Part I: clinical characteristics
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Emotional blunting-inability to feel positive or negative emotions, detachment, or reduced emotional responsiveness-is common in people with depression. However, there is a paucity of studies comprehensively investigating this symptom and its functional impact. This study investigated the experience of emotional blunting, and its impact on overall functioning and quality of life, in the acute and remission phases of depression from the perspective of patients and healthcare providers. This paper presents data on the clinical presentation of emotional blunting in depression from the patient perspective. METHODS: Cross-sectional, observational study conducted in Brazil, Canada, and Spain between April 15 and May 18, 2021. Data were collected via a self-completed online survey. Respondents were adults with depression (acute or remission phase), who were currently using a prescribed antidepressant, and who reported emotional blunting during the past 6 weeks. Emotional blunting was assessed using the Oxford Depression Questionnaire (ODQ; total score range 26-130, higher scores indicate greater emotional blunting). RESULTS: In all, 752 patients completed the survey (62% female; mean age, 45 years). Overall, 44% of patients rated their emotional blunting as extremely severe (acute phase [n = 300], 72%; remission phase [n = 452], 25%; difference, p < 0.01). In all, 56% of patients considered their emotional blunting to be caused by their depression (acute phase, 62%; remission phase, 52%). Mean ODQ total score was 94.8 for patients in the acute phase of depression and 85.7 for those in remission (difference, p < 0.01). Mean score for the ODQ 'antidepressant as cause' domain (maximum possible score, 30) was 18.0 in patients in the acute phase and 17.6 in those in remission. Overall, 45% of patients believed that their antidepressant medication was blunting their emotions and 39% were considering stopping or had already stopped their antidepressant because of perceived emotion-related side effects. CONCLUSIONS: Almost three-quarters of patients in the acute phase of depression and one-quarter of those in remission reported severe emotional blunting. Approximately 56% of patients considered their emotional blunting to be caused by their depression, while 45% believed that their antidepressant medication was negatively affecting their emotions. Just over one-third of patients were considering stopping or had stopped their antidepressant as a result.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".