Prognostic effect of the variable course of alcoholism on the 10-year course of depression.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive effect of the clinical activity of patient's alcohol use on the course of major depressive disorder. Method: One hundred seventy-six probands with Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC) diagnoses of both major depressive disorder and alcoholism were compared to 412 probands with major depressive disorder only by using 10 years of short-interval, prospective follow-up data collected as part of the National Institute of Mental Health Collaborative Depression Study