[Cognitive behavioral therapy of residual symptoms in patients with juvenile depression].

There were forty patients (mean age 20.7 years) who met the ICD-10 criteria of diagnosis of affective disorder (items F31-F33)--juvenile depression, successfully treated with antidepressants in psychiatric hospital and later on maintenance therapy for correction of residual symptoms. The duration of follow-up study was 2 years. All the patients were randomised into two groups, the first one receiving psychopharmacotherapy combined with cognitive behavioural therapy and the second--only the former one. In both groups, the antidepressant dosing was continuously decreased up to complete withdrawal. In the first group, patients revealed significantly fewer residual symptoms after antidepressants treatment compared with the second group, which was assigned only to psychopharmacotherapy. Also, depression relapse frequency tended to be lower in the first group than in the second one (15% vs 35%) but the differences were insignificant. The authors emphasize that further studies of cognitive behavioural therapy in depression relapse prevention are needed.