Antecedents, concomitants and consequences of anger attacks in depression

Anger attacks are episodes of intense anger with autonomic arousal, which occur in response to often trivial provocations. This study explores some of the antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of anger attacks in patients with depression. The sample comprised three groups: depression with anger attacks (n = 20), depression without anger attacks (n = 20) and normal controls (n = 20). Subjects were administered the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, the Anger Attack Questionnaire, Irritability, the Depression Anxiety Scale, the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory, the Psychoticism Extraversion Neuroticism Inventory, the Hassles Scale, the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF Version and the Dysfunctional Analysis Questionnaire. Depressed patients with anger attacks exhibited more suicide-related phenomena and dysfunction scores in comparison to depressed patients without anger attacks. Depressed patients with anger attacks also had higher scores of anxiety, irritability, trait-anger, anger-out, anger expression, psychoticism, hassles, and poor quality of life in comparison to the other two groups. In conclusion, anger attacks adversely affect the lives of depressed patients and their family members and may serve as a qualifier for partially distinct syndrome of depression.