Cognitive behavior therapy in depression

ABSTRACT

To demonstrate the effectiveness of addition of cognitive behavior therapy to pharmacotherapy in treatment of depression. Randomized Control Trial. This Study was conducted at the Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya Medical Center, University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from January 2010 to August 2010. It was a randomized control trial conducted on patients with depressive disorder. Experimental group was treated with cognitive behavior therapy plus pharmacotherapy while control group treated with pharmacotherapy only. Twelve sessions of cognitive behavior therapy were administered to experimental group in addition to [pharmacotherapy] while control group was given pharmacotherapy only. Significant difference was found between the mean scores of two groups on HAM-D on the last follow up session experimental group [M= 3.2 +/- 4.0] at the same time the Control Group mean score was documented as [M = 7.15 +/- 4.3], t [37] = 3.4296, p < 0.001. Mean follow up sessions for Experimental Group were 11.2 +/- 1.94 and for Control Group was 9.2 +/- 3.9 . Cognitive behavior therapy in combination with pharmacotherapy can be used as first line treatment for depression to get full remission and reduce default rate among patients