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What Works Best for Reducing Symptoms and Improving Quality of Life? A 6-Months Follow-up Study on the Effectiveness of Group Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Group Information and Support for Adults Suffering from Depression

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Abstract

A non-randomized effectiveness trial was conducted in an urban secondary care public mental health service in Ireland. The effectiveness of an 8 session group cognitive behavior therapy program (gCBT-8), where the focus was on behavioral activation and cognitive restructuring, was compared with that of an enhanced 12 session group cognitive behavior therapy program (gCBT-12), which contained additional sessions on schema work, and a 12 session information and support control group program (gIS-12) in which there was no CBT skills training. One hundred and eighty-one adults with unipolar mood disorders were allocated to gCBT-8 (N = 67), gCBT-12 (N = 62), or gIS-12 (N = 52). Before and after treatment, and at 6 months follow-up participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation, the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, and the brief World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale. An intention-to-treat analysis of mean scores showed that the three programs had similar outcomes. There were significant improvements on all dependent variables with post-treatment gains maintained at follow-up. The three programs also led to similar remission and combined reliable improvement and remission rates on the BDI-II. It was concluded that all three programs had similar levels of effectiveness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Lucy Moore, Alan Carr & Brendan Rooney

  2. Cluain Mhuire Community Mental Health Service, Dublin, Ireland

    Sinead Hodgins & Daniel Duffy

Authors
  1. Lucy Moore
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  2. Alan Carr
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  3. Sinead Hodgins
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  4. Daniel Duffy
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  5. Brendan Rooney
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Correspondence to Alan Carr.

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Moore, L., Carr, A., Hodgins, S. et al. What Works Best for Reducing Symptoms and Improving Quality of Life? A 6-Months Follow-up Study on the Effectiveness of Group Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Group Information and Support for Adults Suffering from Depression. J Contemp Psychother 47, 211–221 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-017-9358-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-017-9358-7

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