Reducing Stress and Preventing Depression (RESPOND): Randomized Controlled Trial of Web-Based Rumination-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for High-Ruminating University Students
Cook and colleagues took the rumination-focused therapy out of the clinic and tested it as prevention rather than treatment. More than two hundred university students who were not depressed but scored high on worry and rumination, a known risk factor, were randomly assigned to a web-based version of the therapy with written support from qualified therapists, an unguided self-administered version, or usual care. The outcome was whether they went on to have a major depressive episode, assessed by diagnostic interview at three, six and fifteen months by interviewers who did not know which group they were in. The guided version reduced the risk of becoming depressed by around a third relative to usual care. That is a substantial result for an intervention delivered over the internet to people who were well at the start, and it supports the underlying logic of targeting a specific risk factor rather than waiting for the disorder.
Cook and colleagues took the rumination-focused therapy out of the clinic and tested it as prevention rather than treatment. More than two hundred university students who were not depressed but scored high on worry and rumination, a known risk factor, were randomly assigned to a web-based version of the therapy with written support from qualified therapists, an unguided self-administered version, or usual care. The outcome was whether they went on to have a major depressive episode, assessed by diagnostic interview at three, six and fifteen months by interviewers who did not know which group they were in. The guided version reduced the risk of becoming depressed by around a third relative to usual care. That is a substantial result for an intervention delivered over the internet to people who were well at the start, and it supports the underlying logic of targeting a specific risk factor rather than waiting for the disorder.
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235 high-worry, high-rumination students; guided internet-delivered rumination-focused CBT reduced the onset of depression relative to usual care.
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- Why You Lie Awake at 3am Replaying One Conversation, Why We Care
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The source
DOI: 10.2196/11349