Combination of Medication and Psychotherapy Appears Most Effective for Treatment of Depressed Teens

The combination of the antidepressant medication fluoxetine and cognitive behavior therapy appears more effective than either strategy alone for the long-term treatment of adolescents with depression, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Major depressive disorder affects approximately 5 percent of adolescents, causing difficulties for patients and their families and increasing the risk for suicide, according to background information in the article.

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Source: American Medical Association (AMA) Released: Fri 28-Sep-2007, 08:00 ET
Embargo expired: Mon 01-Oct-2007, 16:00 ET
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Combination of Medication and Psychotherapy Appears Most Effective for Treatment of Depressed Teens
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MEDICATION, PSYCHOTHERAPY, DEPRESSED, TEENS

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The combination of the antidepressant medication fluoxetine and cognitive behavior therapy appears more effective than either strategy alone for the long-term treatment of adolescents with depression, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Newswise — The combination of the antidepressant medication fluoxetine and cognitive behavior therapy appears more effective than either strategy alone for the long-term treatment of adolescents with depression, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Major depressive disorder affects approximately 5 percent of adolescents, causing difficulties for patients and their families and increasing the risk for suicide, according to background information in the article. To improve the treatment of depression in teens, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1999 funded the Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS). TADS is a randomized controlled trial evaluating short- and long-term effectiveness of three treatments: fluoxetine alone; cognitive behavior therapy, a type of psychotherapy addressing the way individuals currently think and act rather than past events; and a combination of the two.

The TADS team randomly assigned 439 adolescents with depression to one of the three treatments or to placebo pills for 12 weeks. At that point, patients receiving placebo were offered active treatment and the remaining 327 patients (average age 14.6) were asked to continue their assigned therapy through 36 weeks. Fluoxetine was initially prescribed at a dose of 10 milligrams per day; the dosage was increased or decreased at various points during the study based on whether patients responded to treatment or experienced adverse effects. Patients receiving cognitive behavioral therapy had fifteen one-hour sessions during the first 12 weeks, then less frequently, with exact timing dependent on how they responded to treatment.