Conference paper
LANGUAGE IN MILD DEPRESSION: HOW IT IS SPOKEN, WHAT IT IS ABOUT, AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO LISTEN
Daria Smirnova
; Department of Psychiatry, Narcology, Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology, Samara State Medical University, Samara, Russia ;Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, Division of Psychiatry, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Dmitry Romanov
; Department of Psychiatry, Narcology, Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology, Samara State Medical University, Samara, Russia
Elena Sloeva
; Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and Psycholinguistics, Samara State Medical University, Samara, Russia
Natalia Kuvshinova
; Department of Pedagogy, Psychology and Psycholinguistics, Samara State Medical University, Samara, Russia
Paul Cumming
; Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Inselpital, Bern University, Bern, Switzerland ;School of Psychology and Counselling and IHBI, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Gennadii Nosachev
; Department of Psychiatry, Narcology, Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology, Samara State Medical University, Samara, Russia
Abstract
Background: Our previous research demonstrated that mild depression (MD) is characterized by patterns of atypical
language use such as inverted word order, greater repetition, increased use of reflexive/personal (e.g. myself) or negative/
indefinite (e.g. nobody) pronouns, verbs in past tense, and other lexico-grammatical, stylistic and syntactic indicators (how the
patient speaks). We now investigate the role of semantic features (what the patient speaks about) in diagnosing (why it is
important to listen) affective states.
Subjects and methods: 201 written narratives from 124 patients with MD and 77 healthy controls (HC), including 35 cases of
normal sadness (NS), were studied using principle component lexis analysis. Statistical data evaluation was performed with SPSS-25
(p<0.05, significant) and included the Cohen's kappa for inter-rater reliability, nonparametric methods to measure between-group
differences (Mann-Whitney U-test, Pearson Chi-square test, Kruskal-Wallis, one-way ANOVA), and discriminant analysis for modeling
of semantic variables related to affective diagnostic types.
Results: Component lexis analysis revealed an exaggerated usage of semantic categories describing existential and family
values in the texts of MD patients compared to HC. However, there were fewer cognitive and altruistic categories presented in
patients’ self-reports. The most substantial between-group difference was the lesser semantics of self-realization in MD patients,
as well as their significantly lower ranking of social status’ priorities. Communicative and hedonic values in MD speech
displaced and predominated in ranking over the values of social status, versus the opposite relationship in HC speech. The
discriminant model revealed a set of semantic indicators significantly distinguishing the MD, HC and NS groups (96.3%; Wilks’
λ=0.001, p<0.001, r=0.996).
Conclusions: Linguistic structure and content of patients’ verbalizations may serve as diagnostic markers of MD. Evaluation of
psychosocial themes within the content of narratives should enable a better understanding of MD pathogenesis and emphasize the
importance of monitoring social difficulties during treatment.
Keywords
affective disorders; mild depression; component analysis; language; semantic categories
Hrčak ID:
264130
URI
Publication date:
4.9.2019.
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