Thirty patients with chronic depression and 30 patients with
episodic depression as well as 30 healthy controls took part in the
study. Patients were recruited at two sites: from the department of
psychiatry of a community hospital and from a large outpatient
psychotherapy center. The majority of patients were inpatients.
Healthy participants were recruited via advertisements in the local
media and from the university campus. In order to assess their
eligibility, all participants were interviewed by trained clinicians
using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I and II
(SCID; Wittchen et al., 1997).