Comparison of the Effect of Transdiagnostic Therapy and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy on Patients with Emotional Disorders: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background: Transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral treatments for emotional disorders are a new approach that empirically supported. Despite this most of the researches in this field have no control group and so there is a little information about comparing of the effect of transdiagnostic approach to others. The current study was compared transdiagnostic with cognitive-behavior therapy on patients with depression and anxiety disorders. Materials and Methods: This study was a pretest-post test randomized control trial. A diagnostically heterogeneous clinical sample of 23 patients with a principal depression and anxiety disorders that randomly assigned in two groups and participated in eight sessions. Participants were recruited from clinical psychology and psychiatry clinics of Taleghani hospital, Tehran, Iran. Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Quality of life Scale (IRQL) were completed pre and post intervention by participants. The results were analyzed by dependent sample t-test and analyses of covariance (ANCOVA). Results: Data analyses showed that transdiagnostic therapy was effective for decreasing anxiety and depression symptoms, and have more effect for anxiety in comparing to cognitive-behavior therapy. Conclusion: Transdiagnostic therapy was confirmed in decreasing depressive and anxiety symptoms and improving quality of life in patients with depression and anxiety disorders and transdiagnostic therapy was more effective than cognitive-behavior therapy for decrease anxiety symptoms.