Past Issues

Objective: The aim of this study was to discuss the influence and interaction between treatment modality and compliance, and depression severity. Method: Forty-nine depressive outpatients completed at least 6- month follow up among initial 123 patients recruited for this study. Purposive sampling was used to divide the subjects into two groups based on medication as follows: treat as usual (TAU) and combined therapy (CT). The investigative instruments were the Beck Depression Inventory, the Brief Symptom Rating Scale and a questionnaire exploring clinical characteristics and patient compliance during follow up. Scheduled follow up was at least 6 months in each case. Results: Forty percent of the patients completed follow up with completion rates of 67%and 23% for the CT and TAU groups, respectively. After the 6-month follow up, symptom improvement of the former group was more significant compared to the latter despite the greater dosing regularity in the TAU group (X2=4.07, df=1, p< .05), with the difference already evident after the first month of treatment (T=3.23, df=30, p<.05). There was an inverse relationship between treatment regularity and depression severity. (X2= 9.27, df=3, p<.05) Treatment regularity (F=6.30, df=1, p<.05) and the interaction between the stability of OPD revisiting and depression severity (F= 5.54, df=1, p<.05). Conclusion: In this study, the combined treatment was associated with greater willingness for OPD revisiting at the beginning of follow up, with depression severity and the compliance also subsequently improved. Moreover, depression severity and the treatment regularity also directly influenced symptom improvement. (Full text in Chinese)