Depression Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Depression, including details on clinical depression, medication, symptoms, treatment, counselling, therapy.

Benchmarks for psychotherapy efficacy in adult major depression.

Minami T, Wampold BE, Serlin RC, Kircher JC, Brown GS

Department of Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. takuya.minami@ed.utah.edu

This study estimates pretreatment-posttreatment effect size benchmarks for the treatment of major depression in adults that may be useful in evaluating psychotherapy effectiveness in clinical practice. Treatment efficacy benchmarks for major depression were derived for 3 different types of outcome measures: the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (M. A. Hamilton, 1960, 1967), the Beck Depression Inventory (A. T. Beck, 1978; A. T. Beck & R. A. Steer, 1987), and an aggregation of low reactivity-low specificity measures. These benchmarks were further refined for 3 conditions: treatment completers, intent-to-treat samples, and natural history (wait-list) conditions. The study confirmed significant effects of outcome measure reactivity and specificity on the pretreatment-posttreatment effect sizes. The authors provide practical guidance in using these benchmarks to assess treatment effectiveness in clinical settings.

Published 1 May 2007 in J Consult Clin Psychol, 75(2): 232-43.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Depression Research Today. All Rights Reserved.