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Community-Based Multi-Site Randomized Controlled Trial of Behavioral Activation for Patients with Depressive Disorders

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Abstract

Behavioral activation (BA) is a beneficial and relatively cost-effective treatment option for depression. This study utilized a pragmatic randomized controlled research design to investigate whether BA, as compared with treatment as usual (TAU), led to superior treatment effects, when delivered in community mental health settings by retrained community mental health professionals. Patients with depressive disorders (n = 64) were randomly assigned to a 10-session BA (n = 31) or TAU (n = 33) group. The depressive symptoms and behavioral engagement were assessed at the baseline, post-treatment, and a six-month follow-up. Results showed that, as compared to the TAU group, the BA group had: (1) a reduction in depression severity, as evidenced by large effect sizes and greater response rates, and (2) an increase in behavioral engagement. However, the post-treatment gains were not maintained at the six-month follow-up. The implications and limitations of the study are also discussed (KCT0004098, June 27, 2019, retrospectively registered).

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Funding

This work was supported by a grant of the Korea Mental Health Technology R&D Project, Ministry of Health and Welfare Affairs, Republic of Korea (HM15C1121, 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Korea University, 145, Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, Republic of Korea

    Eunbyeol Lee, Yeoul Han, Yun Ji Cha & Kee-Hong Choi

  2. Department of Psychiatry, St. Vincent’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 93, Jungbu-daero, Paldal-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 16247, Republic of Korea

    Ji-Hye Oh, Na-Ri Hwang & Ho-Jun Seo

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  1. Eunbyeol Lee
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Contributions

EL—Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing- Original Draft, Visualization. YH—Investigation, Visualization, Writing- Review & Editing. YJC—Investigation, Data Curation. JHO—Investigation, Project administration. NRH—Investigation. HJS—Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing- Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. KHC—Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing- Review & Editing, Supervision, Project administration. Funding acquisition.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ho-Jun Seo or Kee-Hong Choi.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Approval

Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the Korea University. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

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

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Lee, E., Han, Y., Cha, Y. et al. Community-Based Multi-Site Randomized Controlled Trial of Behavioral Activation for Patients with Depressive Disorders. Community Ment Health J 58, 343–355 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-021-00828-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-021-00828-3

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