Cognitive Therapy While Tapering Antidepressants May Be Alternative to Maintenance Medication

Treating patients whose depression is in remission with preventive cognitive therapy (PCT) or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) as they taper an antidepressant medication appears to be a safe alternative to maintenance antidepressant therapy, suggests areport inJAMA Psychiatry.“Current clinical guidelines recommend the continued use of antidepressant medication for patients at high risk for depressive relapse,” wrote Claudi L. Bockting, Ph.D., of Amsterdam University Medical Center and colleagues. “These results suggest that even for patients with a poor clinical pr ognosis, it may be possible to recommend offering PCT or MBCT during and after tapering of antidepressants as an alternative to continuing the use of antidepressants.”Bockting and colleagues performed a literature search for studies that compared adults with depression fully or partially in remission who received preventive psychological intervention while being tapered off their antidepressant with those who continued antidepressant treatment only. Six studies met the researchers ’ criteria; the researchers were able to obtain individual patient data for four of these studies (714 patients total), which made up the final sample. Three of the studies involved patients who received MBCT during the tapering period; the fourth involved patients who received PCT during and/or a fter the tapering period.The researchers specifically compared whether the patients who received the psychological interven...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: antidepressants depression JAMA Psychiatry mindfulness-based cognitive therapy preventive cognitive therapy relapse tapering medication Source Type: research