Characteristics of patients with depression initiating or switching antidepressant treatment: baseline analyses of the PERFORM cohort study

Table 1 Patient characteristics at baseline

Characteristic	Switching (n = 247)^a	Initiating (n = 910)^a	P-value: switching vs initiating	Total (n = 1159)^b
Age, mean ± SD (years)	46.0 ± 11.7	43.8 ± 12.0	0.012	44.3 ± 12.0
Female (%)	76.1	72.5	0.259	73.2
Marital status (%)			0.021
Single	20.6	21.9		21.6
Married/couple	54.7	59.6		58.5
Divorced/separated	18.6	16.2		16.7
Widowed	6.1	2.4		3.2
Education (%)			< 0.001
No degree or diploma	8.1	3.5		4.5
Elementary school	32.8	22.1		24.4
High school	31.6	38.4		36.9
Non-university degree	13.0	14.3		14.0
University degree	14.6	21.8		20.2
Work status (%)
Paid employment or self-employed	59.5	68.8	0.006	66.8
Unemployed	20.2	17.1	0.259	17.8

Abbreviation: SD standard deviation
P-values in bold indicate statistically significant differences
^aNumber of patients included in the between-group comparison; information regarding whether the patient was initiating or switching treatment was missing for two patients
^bTotal number of patients providing data

ISSN: 1471-244X