Me. Thase et al., DO DEPRESSED MEN AND WOMEN RESPOND SIMILARLY TO COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY, The American journal of psychiatry, 151(4), 1994, pp. 500-505
A great majority of the evidence Pertaining to the effectiveness of th
e time-limited psychotherapies as treatments of major depression are d
erived from studies of either predominantly or entirely female subject
groups. Depressed men and women differ in a number of important respe
cts that may a ter the course of affective disorder, and as a result,
they may also differ in their responses to psychotherapy. In this stud
y the outcomes of 40 men and 44 w omen treated with cognitive behavior
therapy were compared. Method: The patients were interviewed with the
Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia and diagnosed acco
rding to the Research Diagnostic Criteria and DSM-III-R criteria. Subs
equently, they were assessed every other week (with the Hamilton Depre
ssion Rating Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, and Global Assessment S
cale) during a standardized, time-limited cognitive behavior therapy p
rotocol. The outcomes of the men and women were compared by means of a
series of analyses of variance and covariance and survival analyses.
Results: There were several significant pretreatment differences, and
the men attended significantly fewer therapy sessions than the women.
Although the men and women generally bad comparable responses, patient
s with higher pretreatment levels of depressive symptoms, particularly
women, bad poorer outcomes. Conclusions: This study provides further
evidence of gender-specific differences in depressed patients' symptom
s and treatment utilization. Cognitive behavior therapy appears to be
a comparably useful outpatient treatment for men and women. However, e
ither more intensive cognitive behavior therapy or alternative methods
of treatment may be warranted for patients with more severe syndromes
.