New Program May Help Teens at High Risk for ...(ages of 13 and 17. The children were ...),Health

The children were deemed high-risk by virtue of having at least one parent or caretaker that had either experienced a "major depressive episode" in the three years leading up to the study or had coped with three or more such episodes and/or three or more cumulative years of depression throughout the child's life.

Although the adolescents either had a history of depression or incipient depressive symptoms, neither they nor their parents had been diagnosed with bipolar I or schizophrenia, and none were taking antidepressants. As well, none had previously undergone more than eight sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy.

At four different medical centers, about half the children were randomly assigned to the cognitive behavioral group, which was exposed to once a week 90-minute group sessions for eight weeks designed to teach problem-solving skills and techniques to cope with negative and/or unrealistic thoughts. These core sessions were followed by six months of follow-up sessions.

All the children -- including the half not assigned to the cognitive intervention group -- were simply allowed to continue (or begin) whatever traditional mental health treatment they chose, outside the study confines.

Overall, Garber and her team found that those adolescents who participated in the cognitive program experienced an 11 percent lower incidence of depression compared to those children who weren't -- about 21 percent versus about 32 percent.

However, adolescents whose parents were currently depressed while they were exposed to the prevention regimen were also found to be three times as likely to experience depression themselves, compared with children in the program whose parents were not depressed at the time.

The authors concluded that this meant that the cognitive behavioral treatment was not, in fact, more effective at preventing depression among this particular group of adolescents t
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