Patient recruitment
psychiatric, chronic depression, mood disorders
Patients will be recruited in private psychotherapeutic and psychiatric practices, in outpatient clinics for mood disorders in hospitals. Patient flyers describing study aims and procedures will be available to potential participants with a likely diagnosis of chronic depression. Healthy controls will be recruited through informal networks. Patients with a likely diagnosis of chronic depression (BDI-II > 17) and interested healthy volunteers will be referred to the respective study center in each country and thereafter interviewed for eligibility by a research assistant.