DO DEPRESSED-PATIENTS WITH HIGHER PRETREATMENT STRESS LEVELS RESPOND BETTER TO COGNITIVE THERAPY THAN IMIPRAMINE

Forty-eight unipolar depressed patients were randomly assigned to 12 w eeks of treatment with either imipramine (IMI) (n = 32) or cognitive t herapy (CT) (n = 16). Prior to treatment assignment, all patients were rated for severity of a variety of pschosocial stressors. The interac tion effect between pretreatment stress and type of treatment, CT or I MI, on symptom improvement was evaluated. We hypothesized that patient s with greater pretreatment stress would respond better to cognitive t herapy. Patients treated with either CT or IMI showed equivalent reduc tions of depressive symptoms. There was no interaction effect between pretreatment stress and type of treatment on improvement of depressive symptoms. Based on this preliminary study it does not appear that dep ressed patients with higher pretreatment levels of stress respond bett er to cognitive therapy than they do to imipramine.