Study participant characteristics.

<p>BDI, Beck Depression Inventory; BMI, body mass index; DST, dexamethasone suppression test; MADRS-S, Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale – Self assessment; SD, standard deviation. All values are means unless otherwise specified. Student's t-test was performed when testing for differences between two means and Pearson's chi-square test was employed when testing for differences in distribution of categorical data.</p>a<p>Patients, <i>n</i> = 73; control subjects, <i>n</i> = 84.</p>b<p>Patients, <i>n</i> = 145; control subjects, <i>n</i> = 144.</p>c<p>Current smoker.</p>d<p>Post-DST cortisol groups were formed by using the 25th and 75th percentiles among the controls as cut-offs to divide both controls and patients into 3 groups. A low post DST cortisol value (subjects below the 25th percentile, also denoted the low post DST group) was used to identify subjects exhibiting relative hypocortisolism and a high post DST cortisol value (subjects above the 75th percentile, also denoted the high post DST group) was used to identify subjects exhibiting relative hypercortisolism. Subjects showing post DST cortisol values between the 25th and 75th percentiles were identified as subjects exhibiting eucortisolism.</p>e<p>Number of patients on current medication.