Investigating symptom-specific effects of psychotherapy and antidepressant medication in the treatment of major depressive disorder
Year: 2019
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous mental disorder which is the leading cause of disability across the world.Currently, the first-line treatment for MDD is based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and pharmacological treatment with antidepressant medications.Evidence suggests that both of these treatment modalities are effective, however, it is not well understood whether these treatments affect specific depressive symptoms differentially.The present exploratory study investigated differential treatment effects of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, antidepressant medication (paroxetine) and pill-placebo in a clinical sample by reanalysing data from a previously published randomised controlled trial.The aim of this investigation was to explore whether support for previously reported findings concerning differential symptom-level improvement would be found with a widely used MDD scale; the Beck Depression Inventory.The American sample consisted of 192 outpatients who were randomly assigned to receive pillplacebo (N = 48), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (N = 50) and paroxetine (N = 94) for eight weeks.A Multivariate Analysis of Variance was used to analyse the data.Statistically significant symptom-level differences were not found between the three treatment conditions.The descriptive statistics revealed preliminary support for previous findings and they provide direction for future investigations in this area.Paroxetine was found to outperform (numerically) the other treatment conditions with respect to the majority of the depressive symptoms in the BDI.Possible explanations for the results are discussed.Sufficiently powered future investigations are needed in this area to elucidate the symptom-specific effects of MDD treatments.
Author: Horneman, F.V.O.
Language: English
Subfield: Pharmacology (medical)
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7057761688