ORIGINAL ARTICLE The Clinical Research Center for Depression Study: Baseline Characteristics of a Korean Long-Term Hospital-Based Observational Collaborative Prospective Cohort Study

ObjectiveaaThe Clinical Research Center for Depression (CRESCEND) study is a 9-year observational collaborative prospective cohort study for the clinical outcomes in participants with depressive disorders in Korea. In this study, we examined the baseline characteristics of the depressive participants as the hospital-based cohort. MethodsaaParticipants were assessed using various instruments including the Clinical Global Impression scale, 17-item Hamilton De-pression Rating Scale (HDRS-17), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Social and Occupational Functioning As-sessment Scale, Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, Scale for Suicide Ideation, and World Health Organization Quality of Life as-sessment instruments-abbreviated version. Also, personal histories of medical and psychiatric illnesses and the range of socio-epidemiolo-gic and clinical data were collected from each participant. ResultsaaOne thousand one hundred eighty three participants were recruited from 18 hospitals. The mean age of the participants was 47.9±15.9 year-old, 74.4 % were female, 82.9 % had been diagnosed of major depressive disorder, 40.9 % were experiencing their first de-pressive episode, and 21.4 % had a past history of suicide attempts. The majority (85.3%) of the participants were moderately to severely ill. The average HDRS-17 was 19.8±6.1. Significant gender differences at baseline were shown in age, education, marriage, employment, re-ligion, and first depressive episode