Attentional Control as a Predictor of Response to Psychological Treatment for Depression and Relapse up to 1 year After Treatment: A Pilot Cohort Study
Open accessAbstract
Background:Identifying depressed patients unlikely to reach remission and those likely to relapse after reaching remission is of great importance, but there are few pre-treatment factors that can help clinicians predict prognosis and together these explain relatively little variance in treatment outcomes. Attentional control has shown promise in studies to date, but has not been investigated prospectively in routine clinical settings with depressed patients.Aims:This study aimed to pilot the use of a brief self-report measure of attentional control in routine care and investigate the associations between attentional control, psychological treatment response and relapse to depression up to 1 year post-treatment.Method: Depressed patients were recruited from two primary care psychological treatment (IAPT) services and completed the Attentional Control Scale (ACS) alongside routine symptom measures at every therapy session. Participants were tracked and followed up for 1 year post-treatment.Results: Baseline ACS scores were associated with remission and residual depressive symptoms post-treatment, and relapse within 12 months of ending treatment, all independent of pre-treatment depressive symptom severity, and the latter also independent of residual symptoms.Conclusion: A self-report measure of attentional control can potentially be used to predict levels of depressive symptoms post-treatment and can contribute to predicting risk of relapse to depression in IAPT services, without affecting rates of therapy completion/drop-out or data completion of standard IAPT measures. However, this pilot study had a small overall sample size and a very small number of observed relapses, so replication in a larger study is needed before firm conclusions can be made.
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In major depressive disorder, 18-77% of patients experienced a relapse.
“Likewise, with regard to major depressive disorder (MDD), 18–77% of patients experienced a relapse [22–28].”
From Psychological interventions to prevent relapse in anxiety and depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis (2022) · cites this paper as [28]
The Results (Descriptive statistics; page unavailable) report that 7 of 33 participants who reached remission after treatment (21.21%) relapsed within one year. That rate falls within the cited range, but this paper does not establish its 18% and 77% endpoints, and its rate applies to participants who reached remission rather than all patients with MDD. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Krijnen-de Bruin, E., Scholten, W., Muntingh, A., Maarsingh, O., van Meijel, B., van Straten, A., & Batelaan, N. (2022) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0272200 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Development and validation of the Readiness for Therapy Questionnaire (RTQ)
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- Authors
- Buckman, J. E. J., Saunders, R., Fearon, P., Leibowitz, J., & Pilling, S.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- St Pancras Hospital (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Buckman, J.E.J.
- Saunders, R.
- Fearon, P.
- Leibowitz, J.
- Pilling, S.
- Venue
- Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2018-10-24
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 318-331
- ISSN
- 1352-4658 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-1833
- PMC
- PMC6372070
- OpenAlex
- W2898148993
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 2.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (201292/Z/16/Z)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
- Keywords
- attentional control, depression, recurrence prediction, treatment response, remission, psychological intervention, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, primary care, self-report measures, residual depressive symptoms, prognosis
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Depression, Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Male, Pilot Projects, Prognosis, Recurrence, Time Factors, Cohort Studies, Treatment Outcome, Self Report
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