• Felicia Iftene, Elena Predescu, Simona Stefan, and Daniel David.
• Department of Psychiatry, Queens University, C/o Providence Care Mental Health Services, 752 King Street West, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 4X3. Electronic address: iftenef@providencecare.ca.
• Psychiatry Res. 2015 Feb 28; 225 (3): 687-94.

AbstractMajor depressive disorder is a highly prevalent and debilitating condition in youth, so developing efficient treatments is a priority for mental health professionals. Psychotherapy (i.e., cognitive behavioral therapy/CBT), pharmacotherapy (i.e., SSRI medication), and their combination have been shown to be effective in treating youth depression; however, the results are still mixed and there are few studies engaging multi-level analyses (i.e., subjective, cognitive, and biological). Therefore, the aims of this randomized control study (RCT) were both theoretical - integrating psychological and biological markers of depression in a multi-level outcome analysis - and practical - testing the generalizability of previous results on depressed Romanian youth population. Eighty-eight (N=88) depressed Romanian youths were randomly allocated to one of the three treatment arms: group Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)/CBT (i.e., a form of CBT), pharmacotherapy (i.e., sertraline), and group REBT/CBT plus pharmacotherapy. The results showed that all outcomes (i.e., subjective, cognitive, and biological) significantly change from pre to post-treatment under all treatment conditions at a similar rate and there were no significant differences among conditions at post-test. In case of categorical analysis of the clinical response rate, we found a non-significant trend favoring group REBT/CBT therapy. Results of analyses concerning outcome interrelations are discussed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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