Disorder-specific versus transdiagnostic and clinician-guided versus self-guided treatment for major depressive disorder and comorbid anxiety disorders: A randomized controlled trial

Titov, N. and Dear, B. and Staples, L. and Terides, M. and Karin, E. and Sheehan, J. and Johnston, L. et al. 2015. Disorder-specific versus transdiagnostic and clinician-guided versus self-guided treatment for major depressive disorder and comorbid anxiety disorders: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 35: pp. 88-102.

Source Title

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

DOI

10.1016/j.janxdis.2015.08.002

ISSN

0887-6185

School

School of Psychology and Speech Pathology

Remarks

This open access article is distributed under the Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/27198

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

Disorder-specific cognitive behavior therapy (DS-CBT) is effective at treating major depressive disorder (MDD) while transdiagnostic CBT (TD-CBT) addresses both principal and comorbid disorders by targeting underlying and common symptoms. The relative benefits of these two models of therapy have not been determined. Participants with MDD (n = 290) were randomly allocated to receive an internet delivered TD-CBT or DS-CBT intervention delivered in either clinician-guided (CG-CBT) or self-guided (SG-CBT) formats. Large reductions in symptoms of MDD (Cohen’s d ≥ 1.44; avg. reduction ≥ 45%) and moderate-to-large reductions in symptoms of comorbid generalised anxiety disorder (Cohen’s d ≥ 1.08; avg. reduction ≥ 43%), social anxiety disorder (Cohen’s d ≥ 0.65; avg. reduction ≥ 29%) and panic disorder (Cohen’s d ≥ 0.45; avg. reduction ≥ 31%) were found. No marked or consistent differences were observed across the four conditions, highlighting the efficacy of different forms of CBT at treating MDD and comorbid disorders.