Little difference was found between the psychiatric symptoms of medical patients and general-population subjects with affective disorder, both groups having been assessed with the same procedure (Present State Examination). Discrimination between medical patients with and without affective disorder was best achieved when patients with depressive and anxiety disorders were considered separately. Depressed mood, morning depression, and hopelessness were the key symptoms in the depressives, and nervous tension, free-floating anxiety, panic attacks, and specific phobias in the patients with anxiety disorders. Symptom profile did not distinguish patients with persistent affective disorders from those whose disorders had resolved at a 4-month follow-up.