Analysing Psychosocial Difficulties in Depression: A Content Comparison between Systematic Literature Review and Patient Perspective

Table 4

Ranking of the specific psychosocial difficulties according to literature and patient reports.

Main PSD categories	Literature review (number of studies)	Focus group; (number of times; the PSDs were a topic)	Individual interviews; (number of persons; mentioned the PSD)
Emotional functions	Depressive mood and symptoms (54); Anxiety (8); In general (5); Emotional regulation (3^*)	In general (20); Anxiety (10); Depressive mood and symptoms (7); Loneliness (6); Distress (4)	Depressed mood (14); Anxiety (14); Emotional regulation (9); Loneliness (8); In general (5)
Cognitive functions	In general (5); Thought functions (5); Executive functions (3)	Thought functions (6); Attention (3)	Attention (10); Memory (7)
Employment	In general (10)	In general (11)	Efficiency (5); In general (3)
Energy and Drive	Fatigue (8); Vitality (7); Libido (3); Motivation (3)	In general (8)	Motivation (3); In general (10); Fatigue (9); Family (10)
Relationship with; others	In general (6); Family (5)	In general (6)	Intimate relationships (9); In general (4)

∗Only PSDs addressed more than three times in the literature or mentioned more than three times by the participants in the focus group and the individual interviews are shown here.