Citation

Hawighorst A, Knight MJ, Fourrier C, Sampson E, Hori H, Cearns M, Jörgens S, Baune BT. Psychiatry Res. 2023; 330: e115590.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115590

PMID

37984280

Abstract

The CERT-D program offers a new treatment approach addressing disturbed cognitive and psychosocial functioning in major depressive disorder (MDD). The current analysis of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) comprises two objectives: Firstly, evaluating the program's efficacy of a personalised versus standard treatment and secondly, assessing the treatment's persistence longitudinally. Participants (N = 112) were randomised into a personalised or standard treatment group. Both groups received 8 weeks of cognitive training, followed by a three-month follow-up without additional training. The type of personalised training was determined by pre-treatment impairments in the domains of cognition, emotion-processing and social-cognition. Standard training addressed all three domains equivalent. Performance in these domains was assessed repeatedly during RCT and follow-up. Treatment comparisons during the RCT-period showed benefits of personalised versus standard treatment in certain aspects of social-cognition. Conversely, no benefits in the remaining domains were found, contradicting a general advantage of personalisation. Exploratory follow-up analysis on persistence of the program's effects indicated sustained intervention outcomes across the entire sample. A subsequent comparison of clinical outcomes between personalised versus standard treatment over a three-month follow-up period showed similar results. First evidence suggests that existing therapies for MDD could benefit from an adjunct administration of the CERT-D program.

Language: en

Keywords

Major depressive disorder; Cognitive remediation; Cognitive training; Emotion processing; Functional impairment; Social-cognition