Boehringer Ingelheim reports on exacerbation of depression

Boehringer Ingelheim has presented data to the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Society this week in San Diego, with it revealed that common conditions including fatigue, anxiety and sleeping problems can exacerbate the productivity declines exhibited by patients suffering from depression.

The data gleaned from surveys of over 14,000 employees and an integrated database of healthcare claims found that depression has the highest adverse affect on productivity in the workplace when compared to the other nine most common physical and mental conditions.

Patients with depression not exhibiting these co-occurring conditions still exhibited significant reductions in productivity, while the drop in efficiency in patients with sleeping problems, anxiety and fatigue who do not suffer from depression was not as marked.

Ronald C Kessler, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, said: “While depression itself has a significant economic impact, the negative effect on both workplace productivity and healthcare costs can be considerably increased when employees who are depressed also suffer from other conditions.”

He added that the results of this study indicate that healthcare workers should aim to reduce the other factors related to depression as early as possible.

Earlier this week, Boehringer Ingelheim announced the results of a clinical study showing that depressed patients who have not responded sufficiently well to the use of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, duloxetine hydrochloride can be effective as a means of pain relief.