BRA, better outcome was associated with greater number of past psychiatric diagnoses, parent involvement in treatment, and younger age at onset of the first depressive episode.
In another study of the effectiveness of group therapy as an intervention for adolescent depression, Fine, Forth, Gilbert and Haley (1991) compared two forms of short-term group therapy (social skills training or therapeutic support group) for 66 depressed adolescents (aged 13 17 years). Treatment outcome was based on self-report and semistructured clinical interviews for depression, measures of self-concept, and cognitive distortions. Findings revealed that teens in the therapeutic support groups showed significantly greater reductions in clinical depression and significant increases in self-concept. These group differences were no longer evident at 9-month follow-up, at which time it was found that youth in the therapeutic support groups had maintained their improvement, and youth in the social skills training groups had caught up.
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