Minor depressive disorder

Minor depressive disorder, also called minor depression, is a mood disorder in which at least two depressive symptoms are present for a long time but the full criteria for major depressive disorder are not met. It was never an officially accepted diagnostic term: the DSM-IV-TR listed it in Appendix B, under the category Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, and it appears in no other edition of the manual, including DSM-5. A person is considered to have it when two to four depressive symptoms, one of them depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure, occur during a two-week period without a single specific triggering event. Not every case is judged to need treatment, but some are treated as major depressive disorder is, with cognitive behavioral therapy, antidepressant medication or both. Research supports the view that it is an early stage of major depressive disorder or is highly predictive of it, and how nonspecific depressive diagnoses should be classified remains debated.