Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Group to Reduce Negative Automatic Thought and Depressive Symptoms with Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

          This randomized control - group pretest and posttest design was aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) group for reducing negative automatic thought and depressive symptoms in psychiatric patients during October 2009-September 2011. The subjects were psychiatric patients (psychoses, major affective disorder, problem of drug and alcohol use) who were admitted to a psychiatric hospital and had a score on The Thai Depression Inventory more than 21. Their ages ranged from 20 to 60 years. The experiment group was assigned to the CBT 5 times per week. Each session ranged from 60 to 90 minutes (the therapists were experienced psychiatric nurse for CBT group). The control group was assigned to the supportive psychotherapy (SP) group which underwent a usual therapy 3 times per week. Each session lasted 60 minutes.Subjects were assessed at pretreatment, posttreatment, one month and three months after treatment.Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA. The results of this study showed that subjectsin the CBT group had a significantly greater decreasing score in negative automatic thought and depressive symptoms than those in the control group. Decreasing rate of depression of the experimentgroup was more substantial significantly than that of the control group. The ratio of readmission rate between the CBT and SP groups at 6 months after discharge from the hospital was 1 : 2.

Key words: cognitive behavioral therapy, depressive symptom, negative automatic thought, supportive psychotherapy