Mindful therapies good at preventing depression relapse--study

Both the therapies work equally well for patients experiencing unstable remission after depression treatment.

"For those unwilling or unable to tolerate maintenance antidepressant treatment, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy offers equal protection from relapse," the researchers wrote.

"Surprisingly, for patients whose acute-phase remission was stable, there was no differential effect on survival between the treatments we studied," they added.

The study details
The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, looked at 166 major depressive disorder patients aged between 18 to 65 years from two clinics in Canada.

The researchers focused on 84 patients who had achieved remission.

The patients were further divided into 3 groups on a random basis. The first group was provided antidepressant maintenance therapy, the second was given mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, while the last was administered a placebo.

Participants who were administered the cognitive therapy stopped their antidepressants and instead attended eight week long group sessions.

The study results
During the study, almost 51 percent of the participants were classified as unstable remitters by the researchers.

These patients reported higher depression scores and spent more time in the acute treatment phase besides spending more days in remission as well.

Relapse rates were found to be 27 percent in the case of antidepressant maintenance therapy group patients, 28 percent for mindfulness therapy receiving patients, and 71 percent for the placebo group.

Practicing yoga and meditation was found to cause fewer relapses in the participants.

A substantial interaction was witnessed in the quality of acute-phase remission and the subsequent prevention of relapse in randomized patients.

"For patients whose acute-phase remission was marked by periodic symptom flurries, discontinuing [antidepressants] and receiving [cognitive therapy], or continuing with [antidepressants] significantly lowered relapse/recurrence risk compared with discontinuation to placebo," the researchers wrote.

They said the results are "in accord with previous reports" that time in remission or the presence of residual symptoms are associated with "poorer acute- and maintenance-phase outcomes" and that reduction of this risk "with targeted treatment is beneficial."

The findings have been reported in the 'Archives of General Psychiatry.'