2 Out of 3 Depressed Teens Gain Lasting Benefits From Therapy
Farmington PressDec 02, 2016
"Depression can seriously impair people's lives, and in many cases begins during their teenage years," said
According to background material provided in a university news release, psychological treatments are effective in the short term in about 70 percent of adolescents with depression. But it's not clear how these patients fare in the long term, the study authors noted.
The study included 465 teens in
The participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: cognitive behavior therapy (focusing on changing how people think); short-term psychoanalytic therapy (focusing on topics like dreams, memories and the unconscious); or a brief psychosocial intervention (focusing on strategies like encouraging pleasurable activities and combating loneliness).
The researchers found that 70 percent of the teens improved to a significant extent no matter which approach they tried. In those who benefited from treatment, their depression symptoms had declined by 50 percent over the next year.
"This is very promising, and shows that at least two-thirds of teenagers may benefit from these psychiatric treatments, which in theory reduce the risk of recurrence," study co-author
"Of course, this means that there are still a substantial proportion of teenagers who do not benefit and we need to understand why this should be the case and find appropriate treatments to help them, too," Fonagy added.
The study was published
More information
For more about teen depression, visit the