Table 2.

Comparison of DSM-IV-TR Diagnostic Criteria, Participants’ Experiences of Current Mood, and Participants’ Perceptions of Depression

DSM-IV-TR criteria for major depression	Perceptions of depression	Experience of current mood
Depressed mood	Persistent sad, anxious, or empty mood  crying all the time, being sad all the time, nervous, down, feeling bad about everything, miserable, hurt	Persistent sad, anxious, or empty mood  crying, sad, worried
	Irritability or anger  angry, moody, mood swings, mean, hateful, aggravated, upset, catch an attitude, took my anger out on other people, out of control, crazy	Irritability or anger  irritable, mad, crazy
Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities	Anhedonia  not really trying to have a good time, don’t want to go anywhere, can’t enjoy children, don’t want to do anything, bored, don’t enjoy anything	Anhedonia  just want to stay in the house all the time, really boring, not wanting to have fun or enjoy myself
	Isolation, self-isolation  wanting to be alone, felt alone, didn’t want to talk to people, don’t want to be bothered, isolated, lonely	Self-isolation  didn’t want to go around/talk to anybody, didn’t want to be bothered
Significant weight loss or gain or decrease or increase in appetite	Appetite increase  Hungry	Appetite increase and/or decrease  poor appetite, make myself eat, eat just one time, makes me eat, get hungry
Insomnia or hypersomnia	Hypersomnia  just want to lay in bed	Insomnia and/or hypersomnia  wake up in the night, don’t sleep well, sleep all the time, couldn’t get out of bed
Psychomotor agitation or retardation.	–	–
	Somatic complaints  Headaches	Somatic complaints  headaches
Fatigue or loss of energy	Decreased energy, fatigue   slowed down, tired all the time, weighing me down	Decreased energy, fatigue  slowed down, lack of energy, just wanted to lie in bed
Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt	Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness  nobody cares about me, blaming myself, I think something is wrong with me, down on myself	Feelings of guilt  blaming myself guilt
Diminished concentration or indecisiveness	Overwhelmed  stress, hard, frustrated	Overwhelmed  hard, a lot, don’t know what to do
Recurrent thoughts of death	Thoughts of death or suicide  I wanted to die, If I was depressed I would want to kill myself	Thoughts of death or suicide; suicide attempts  I wanted to hang myself, I just decided to kill myself, I was in the hospital for taking an overdose, and I wanted to die
	Feelings of hopelessness  feel like giving up on everything, didn’t think I was going to make it	Feelings of hopelessness  feel like giving up
		Self-injurious behaviors   I tried to hurt myself

Note: Italics denote language used by participants to describe perceptions and experiences