Aftercare in chronic and recurrent depression

Development and initial evaluation of a telephone-based continuation intervention for patients with chronic or recurrent depression

Project coordination: Prof. Dr. Birgit Watzke; Katja Machmutow, MSc

Title and Abstract:

Optimizing psychotherapeutic aftercare for patients suffering from chronic/recurrent depression. Maintaining patients' outcomes following acute psychotherapy by developing and first evaluation of a telephone-based continuation therapy

Depressive disorders frequently take a chronic or recurrent course. Acute phase treatments are effective but risk of relapse is substantial, particularly in patients with a long illness history and higher numbers of previous illness episodes. Aftercare interventions can be helpful in supporting patients sustain their gains from acute phase treatments and to transfer and integrate newly learned skills into their everyday lives.  

In the current project we are developing and evaluating a telephone-based psychological continuation intervention for patients suffering from a chronic or recurrent depression. A one-group pilot-study is conducted to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention in a sample of 20 (partially) remitted outpatients who had undergone outpatient psychotherapeutic treatment due to an acute depressive episode. After finishing their acute phase therapy at our outpatient center participants will be offered 8 psychotherapeutic telephone sessions over a time period of 6 months. Based on a set of a manualized modules, the primary aim of the sessions will be to support the participants’ transfer of previously learned skills and to train their self-management skills for pro-active relapse prevention. Sessions will be supplemented by a participant work book.

Based on the experiences of this project we will adjust and optimize the rationale and procedures of this novel telephone-based continuation therapy for subsequent clinical evaluation against an active control group in a full-scale randomized controlled trial.