Adolescent depression is a common disorder, affecting 1.6 percent to 8.9 percent of adolescents annually, but fewer than three of ten adolescents with mental health problems in the United States receive mental health services, the article states. Recently, school-based health clinics have become an important treatment setting for adolescents with mental health, and general medical problems. Interpersonal psychotherapy focuses on current problems and helps the patient improve interpersonal relationships and reduce depressive symptoms.
Laura Mufson, Ph.D., of New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-A) for depressed adolescents compared to treatment as usual (TAU) for depressed adolescents at school-based mental health clinics.
The researchers studied 63 depressed adolescents at five school-based mental health clinics in New York City. The average age of the adolescents was 15.1 years, 84 percent were female, and 71 percent were Hispanic. Thirty-four adolescents were assigned to receive IPT-A (12 sessions over a 12- to 16-week period) and 29 were assigned to receive TAU at their school-based health clinics. TAU consisted of whatever psychological treatment the adolescents would have received had the study not been in place (generally, supportive, individual counseling).
"Adolescents treated with IPT-A compared with TAU showed greater symptom reduction and improvement in overall functioning," write the authors. The IPT-A group had fewer clinician-reported symptoms of depression, significantly better social functioning, greater clinical improvement and greater decrease in clinical severity of depression than adolescents treated with TAU.
"Interpersonal psychotherapy delivered in school-based health clinics is an effective therapy for adolescent depression," the researchers write.
(Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2004;61:577-584. Available post-embargo at archgenpsychiatry.com) Editor's Note: This study was funded by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Rockville, Md., and a grant from the Psychotherapy Core of the National Institute of Mental Health Child Psychiatry Intervention Research Center, Rockville.
To contact Laura Mufson, Ph.D., call Dacia Morris at 212-543-5421.
For more information, contact JAMA/Archives Media Relations at 312-464-JAMA (5262) or e-mail mediarelations@jama-archives.org .
Journal
Archives of General Psychiatry