The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (Mbct) for Patients with Depressive Disorders

Purposes: The purposes of the three-year study will be to explore the short and long-term effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy (MBCT) on recurrence rate, depressive symptoms, psychological adaptation, quality of life, heart rate variability (HRV) for outpatients with depressive disorders. Methods：The first year study will apply randomized controlled trial research design. Subjects will be those being diagnosed with depressive disorders and onset greater than two times. Subjects will be recruited from psychiatric outpatient departments from medical center located in Northern Taiwan. Randomization will be used to assign subjects to the following groups: MBCT, cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), and control groups. The sample size for each group will be 30. The study instruments include the following: DSM-IV-TR (structured clinical interview for DSM-IV-TR, SCID), Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), Chinese Translation of Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (CMAAS), and WHOQOL-BREF-TW, and HRV. The depressive subjects in the MBCT and CBT groups will be invited to participate the programs for 8 weeks in order to evaluate the effectiveness by comparing the outcomes between pre-test and post-test scores. The second and third years study will apply longitudinal research design to explore the trajectory of study instruments scores in three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, 15 months, and 18 months after group therapy. Conclusions: Results from this proposed study will have benefits in evaluating the effects of MBCT and CBT on psychological and physiological functions among outpatients with recurrent depressive symptoms.