DO DEPRESSED MEN AND WOMEN RESPOND SIMILARLY TO COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY

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 .