Efficacy of Trial-based Cognitive Therapy and Behavioral Activation in Treatment of Depression: a Randomized Clinical Trial

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a mood disorder, highly prevalent in Brazil and in world. MDD is associated with an impaired quality of life and socio occupational functions. The treatments of choice are the psychotropic drugs of the class of antidepressants and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). Some of the patients with pharmacotherapy alone still symptomatic. This explains the association between psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. The CBT seek to modify thoughts, emotions and behaviors and have shown efficacy in several mental disorders, including MDD. Among the CBT models, there is an emphasis on interventions that emphasize: 1) the modification or restructuring of thoughts and beliefs. In this point, the Trial based cognitive Therapy (TBCP) is an approach with a particular emphasis on the modification of core beliefs ; 2) the direct modification of behavior, such as the behavioral activation (BA) that analyzes contingencies and encourages the implementation of activities to improve mood. This project aims to compare the efficacy of TBCP with the BA in the treatment of MDD. For this, a randomized clinical trial will be conducted to treat 96 patients with MDD who are in drug treatment, which will be drawn to the interventions of TBCP most psychiatric drugs, BA more psychiatric drugs or pharmacotherapy alone, each group with 32 patients. Patients will be evaluated with scales and inventories to assess depression, quality of life and social functioning, and the data will be statistically compared between groups.