Ergopsychometry in depressive patients.

Thirteen patients with major depressive disorder, 25 patients with dysthymia and 12 healthy controls underwent ergopsychometric testing. The effect of self-paced and set-paced load on mood, vigilance and perseveration tendency was recorded. Within the clinical groups, various types of load seemed to result mainly in variations in mood. Dysthymics reacted to monotonous load with a deterioration in mood and reacted to load under time pressure with an improvement in mood. Patients with major depressive disorder displayed an amelioration in mood throughout the whole experiment regardless of which particular stressor was being employed. In healthy patients, load did not appear to produce any significant change in mood.