Early reduction in painful physical symptoms is associated with improvements in long-term depression outcomes in patients treated with duloxetine

Table 3 Statistically Significant Variables at Baseline and after 4 Weeks in the Regression Analysis of the Mean KUSTA Score at 6 Months

a) All patients (N = 2574)
Variable	F-value	p-value	Estimate ^a
≥ 50% reduction in overall pain VAS during the first 4 weeks	158.6	< 0.0001	13.32
Number of weeks unable to work in the last 12 months	40.9	< 0.0001	-0.23
Overall pain VAS at baseline (per 20 mm)	33.9	< 0.0001	-2.34
Any concomitant somatic disease at baseline	30.5	< 0.0001	-5.86
SSI non-painful symptoms subscore at baseline	18.0	< 0.0001	-3.49
Living alone	13.8	< 0.001	-3.89
≥ 50% reduction in the SSI painful symptoms subscore during the first 4 weeks	11.0	< 0.001	6.22
Any baseline psychotropic medication	7.9	0.005	-2.93
Duration of depression (years)	6.1	0.014	-0.12
Mean KUSTA at baseline (per 20 mm)	5.6	0.018	1.47
b) Patients with baseline pain VAS > 30 mm (N = 2053)
Variable	F-value	p-value	Estimate ^a
≥ 50% reduction in overall pain VAS during the first 4 weeks	151.4	< 0.0001	14.74
Number of weeks unable to work in the last 12 months	40.2	< 0.0001	-0.25
Any concomitant somatic disease at baseline	22.1	< 0.0001	-5.98
SSI non-painful symptoms subscore at baseline	16.0	< 0.0001	-3.54
Overall pain VAS at baseline (per 20 mm)	15.0	< 0.001	-2.50
Living alone	13.3	< 0.001	-4.24
Mean KUSTA at baseline (per 20 mm)	9.9	0.002	2.36
≥ 50% reduction in the SSI painful symptoms subscore during the first 4 weeks	8.7	0.003	5.84
Age	4.1	0.044	-0.09
Duration of Depression (years)	3.9	0.048	-0.10

^a For binary outcomes (yes/no) the given estimate reflects the average impact on the KUSTA score if the respective factor is present ("yes") compared to the situation where it is not present ("no"), e.g. in this model the mean KUSTA score for a patient living alone is estimated to be 3.89 points lower than for patient not living alone. For continuous outcomes, the estimate reflects the difference in the KUSTA score for each unit increase of the respective covariate, e.g. in this model for each additional year of duration of depression the mean KUSTA score is reduced by 0.12 points.

ISSN: 1471-244X