Depression Research Advances, Treatment Lags
Both drugs and psychotherapy have been shown to be effective treatments for depression, but studies show 80% of sufferers never receive treatment
DEPRESSION is the most extensively researched and best Underwood of the decade in particular has seen significant advance in the epidemiology and treatment of the disorder.
Yet, ironically, the vast majority of cases go untreated. According to a 1983 study by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIGH), about 6% of the population can expect to experience clinical depression within a given 6-month period. Although the suicide rate is 15% for affective (mood) disorders, 80% of the sufferers never see treatment.
The rate of diagnosed depression in this country has increased greatly among people born since World War 11, particularly whom The average age of onset has declined, from around 40 years old to the mid-20s, according to NIGH. The likelihood of a major depression is now one in four in the lifetime of a woman, one in ten for a man. Researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the recurrent nature of the illness, which with hospitalized cases has a relapse rate of about 85%. Depression has a far more pernicious course than is commonly believed, according to a 1984 consent conference at the National Institutes of Health
A measure of public ignorance was supplied last year by columnist Ann landers. National pamper in response to a column on depression. This gap is largely owing to the stigma attached to all mental disorders and the fact that depression acknowledged by victims. It is in many ways a hidden scourge, often manifested (and exacerbated) through alcohol and drug.
But public awareness may be changing. Recognition of depression as a health problem has probably received its keenest prod from publicity about the alarming race of suicide among teenagers. Recently the night launched a campaign called DART (Depression Awareness, Recognition, and Treatment) to improve public and proper signal for understanding of the illness.
15 AUGUST
Given the current attention to depression, the preliminary findings of an NIGH treat APY and drugs can be equally effective in treating depression, have attracted a good deal of attention. The study's rigorous methodology, which represents a major step to want to quantify the results of psychotherapy, may be as significant as its findings
The $3.4-million Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program, launched in 1981, is the largest study of its kind and the most assiduously planned. Two types of therapy were used: cognitive-behavioral therapy, developed at the University of Pennsylvania, which attempts to come a person's distorted assumptions about self
Gerald Germans. "The concept of enormity wet retaliated by family or who received 250,000 requests to inform follow-up studies."
The world; and interpersonal therapy, developed by the New Haven-Boston Col less positive outcomes elaborative Depression Project, which operates on the premise that some depression is caused by role conflicts, grief, and deficient interpersonal relationships. Patients randomly assigned to one of four groups a cognitive-behavioral group, an interpersonal group, a group treated with migrant, a tricyclic antidepressant, and a group on a placebo. The latter two groups also received minimal supportive therapy.
Most studies of psychotherapy for depression have evaluated by the same people who developed the therapies. The attendant danger of bias is eliminated in this study by administering the same treatments at
Three locations-George Washington University in Washington, DC, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Oklahoma (Sr, 24 April 1981, p. 432).
Participating therapists.
You must be logged in to post a comment.