RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Symptom-specific effects of counselling for depression compared to cognitive–behavioural therapy
JF BMJ Mental Health
JO BMJ Ment Health
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, Royal College of Psychiatrists and British Psychological Society
SP e300621
DO 10.1136/bmjment-2022-300621
VO 26
IS 1
A1 Ciarán O'Driscoll
A1 Joshua E J Buckman
A1 Rob Saunders
A1 Sarah Ellard
A1 Syed Ali Naqvi
A1 Satwant Singh
A1 Jon Wheatley
A1 Stephen Pilling
YR 2023
UL http://mentalhealth.bmj.com//content/26/1/e300621.abstract
AB Background Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) and counselling for depression (CfD) are recommended first-line treatments for depression. While they approach change differently, there is little understanding of the impact those approaches have on change during treatment.Objectives This study aimed to identify whether CBT and CfD target different symptoms and explore the implications of modelling choices when quantifying change during treatment.Methods Symptom-specific effects of treatment were identified using moderated network modelling. This was a retrospective cohort study of 12 756 individuals who received CBT or CfD for depression in primary/community care psychological therapy services in England. Change was modelled several ways within the whole sample and a propensity score matched sample (n=3446).Findings CBT for depression directly affected excessive worry, trouble relaxing and apprehensive expectation and had a stronger influence on changes between suicidal ideation and concentration. CfD had a stronger direct influence on thoughts of being a failure and on the associated change between being an easily annoyed and apprehensive of expectation. There were inconsistencies when modelling change using the first and second appointments as the baseline. Residual score models produced more conservative findings than models using difference scores.Conclusions CfD and CBT for depression have differential effects on symptoms demonstrating specific mechanisms of change.Clinical implications CBT was uniquely associated with changes in symptoms associated with anxiety and may be better suited to those with anxiety symptoms comorbid to their depression. When assessing change, the baseline should be the first therapy session, not the pretreatment assessment. Residual change scores should be preferred over difference score methods.Data are available on reasonable request. The raw data are not publicly available due to the containing information that could compromise participant privacy/consent. The raw data that support the findings of this study are available on request from JEJB subject to appropriate permissions from the custodians of the data restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study. The data were provided by the IAPT services for evaluation as part of a wider service improvement project conducted in accordance with the procedures of the host institution and the NHS Trusts which operate the IAPT services (project reference: 00519-IAPT).