• Taiane de Azevedo Cardoso, Thaíse Campos Mondin, Bárbara Coiro Spessato, Luciana de Avila Quevedo, Luciano Dias de Mattos Souza, Ricardo Azevedo da Silva, and Karen Jansen.
• Universidade Católica de Pelotas-Programa de pós-graduação em Saúde e Comportamento, Rua Gonçalves Chaves, 373, Sala 416C, Centro CEP 96015-560, Brazil.
• J Affect Disord. 2014 Oct 1;168:331-6.

BackgroundStudies show high comorbidity between anxiety disorder and depression. Little is known regarding how anxiety symptoms affect prognosis in depression treatment, suggesting the importance of studying the impact of anxiety symptoms in the treatment of depression. We evaluated the impact of anxiety symptoms in the remission of depressive symptoms after brief psychotherapies for depression.MethodsThis randomized clinical trial of 18-29-year-old adults included individuals who met the diagnostic criteria for depression as assessed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID). Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD); anxiety symptoms were assessed using the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS). The protocols of psychotherapy used were: Cognitive Narrative Psychotherapy (CNP) and Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy (CBP). Both treatments included seven sessions. At the end of the treatment and six-month follow-up, an evaluation was made with the HRSD and HARS. The sample included 97 patients divided between the protocols of psychotherapy.ResultsThere was a significant, positive, moderate correlation between the severity of anxiety symptoms at baseline and the remission of depressive symptoms at post-intervention (r=0.38 p<0.001) as well as a significant, positive, low correlation at follow up (r=0.20 p=0.049). We found remission of anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms after brief psychotherapies, and the remission persisted at follow up.LimitationWe did not evaluate the diagnosis of anxiety disorders.ConclusionThe severity of anxiety symptoms did not compromise the treatment focused primarily on depressive symptoms.Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

26 keywords...

hide…