Additional Psychiatric Symptoms and Response to Treatment in a Sample of Iranian Recovered Depressed Patients

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of treatment on reducing the additional psychiatric Symptoms in a sample of recovered depressed patients. Method: A large sample of 354 remitted depressed subjects who were recruited through community advertisement and clinical practices of psychiatrist and psychotherapists were randomly assigned to MBCT, CBT or Treatment As Usual. The patients were on average 39.1 years old, with an average of 2.19 previous episodes of depression. Most patients were either married (50.8%) or single (41.0%), most were unemployed (60.7%), and had either completed high school (35.6%) or at least some post-secondary education (51.1%). Patients, assessed through the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders (SCID) to ensure that they had fully recovered from their most recent index episode of depression and were randomly assigned to 3 groups and were assessed repeatedly through self-report measures, including Brief Symptoms Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory. Results: Here the analyses of evaluation with BSI are presented. In this paper, the ancillary benefits of MBCT and CBT were explored. Results showed that in two active groups in addition to reduce rates of clinical depression, significant and lasting decreases in a range of other symptom scores on the Brief Symptom Inventory occurred. These results suggest the benefits of the interventions in prevention programs for depression. Conclusion: Both active treatments had significantly less relapse at one–year follow-up influenced additional symptoms compared to Treatment As Usual.