Active clinical trials for "Depression"

The purpose of this study is to provide knowledge regarding the effect of early intervention and prevention on the development of anxiety and depression in children. The focus of the intervention is to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and help children develop skills to enhance self-esteem in order to improve life quality. Gender and ethnicity will be studied as moderating factors. Primary care givers will be trained in the use of evidence based methods for children with internalizing difficulties. Children in need will be identified and receive improved services, based on international standards. Active collaboration will be established nationally between three Centers for child and adolescent mental health (RKBU/RBUP) and internationally with Philip C. Kendall at the Temple University in Philadelphia and Kevin Stark at University of Texas at Austin. Primary aims are to examine if an indicated group and school based program, Coping Kids, is more effective than treatment as usual (TAU) in reducing high levels of symptoms of both anxiety and depression among 8-12 year old schoolchildren, and if the the effects are stable over 12 months.

The investigators of this study plan to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of repeated doses of intranasal ketamine in severely depressed patients who are at least 65 years of age and experiencing suicidal ideation. The results of the study could lead to development of new strategies for treating depression.

Caring for dependent persons can give rise to depression in non-professional caregivers, placing a burden on health care services and threatening the quality of the care dispensed to the dependent. Unfortunately, the ability of these patients to attend therapy sessions is often limited precisely by their role as caregivers. Preventive measures that are accessible to caregivers are thus called for. The primary aim of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of telephonic administration of a brief indicated preventive psychological intervention for depression that in previous work proved effective when administered in person in group sessions. With a view to optimizing resource usage by maximizing interventional efficacy, the secondary aim is to determine the contribution to overall efficacy of that part of the intervention that consists in increasing pleasant activities. To these ends, some 180 informed, consenting caregivers satisfying appropriate criteria for inclusion in the study will be randomized to one of three interventions (≈ 60 participants per intervention): the full cognitive-behavioural programme; a program focused only on the component of pleasant activities; or a usual care condition. Both programmes will be administered in five 90 minute sessions by audio tele-conference. All sessions will be recorded for verification of adherence to the intervention protocols. Participants will be re-evaluated at the end of their intervention (when participant satisfaction with the cognitive-behavioural programmes will also be assessed) and also 1, 3, 6 and 12 months later; all evaluations will be performed by trained interviewers who will be blind to the aims of the study, the interventions employed, and the group to which any given participant belongs. Analyses of these evaluations will compare the short- and long-term efficacies of the three groups. Factors that mediate participant improvement or predict results will also be investigated, and the cost-effectiveness of the interventions will be estimated.The central hypothesis of the proposed study is that a multicomponent cognitive-behavioral telephone intervention and a protocol assessing participation in pleasant activities will both significantly reduce the incidence of depression and depressive symptoms compared to a control group with usual care immediately after treatment and at 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up visits.

The purpose of this study is to test a new treatment for preventing childbirth-related mental illness in postpartum mothers. The treatment is aimed at enhancing maternal bonding, reducing postpartum depression (PPD) and anxiety in mothers at risk, and promoting child development. To this end, the investigators will test the clinical utility of intranasal (IN) oxytocin (OXT) administered to mothers during the first postpartum days.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of supervised group exercise on mental wellbeing and signs of depression among pregnant women at risk of perinatal depression in a randomized controlled clinical trial. The investigators hypothesis is that 70 minutes of supervised group exercise twice a week for 12 weeks by pregnant women at risk of perinatal depression, will improve the participants mental wellbeing and reduce their symptoms of depression.

The primary aim of this study is to assess the relationship between personality style, self-compassion and depression during pregnancy, to identify psychological risk factors, particularly personality styles, that may contribute to the onset of PPD. Additionally, the study will provide support for the effectiveness of Internet-based Compassionate-Mind Training (iCMT) as a prevention intervention for Postpartum Depression (PPD) for women in the 2nd and 3rd trimester of pregnancy. The study will also assess differences along personality predictors and depression severity as they relate to intervention outcomes (i.e. depression in postpartum and self-compassion) and engagement. The researchers hypothesize that women both at high and low risk for PPD will receive benefits from the intervention, however, those who endorse more maladaptive personality traits will likely engage and benefit less than those who do not endorse these traits.

Depression (Major Depressive Disorder; MDD) has been dubbed "the common cold among the mental illnesses" and it is also a highly recurrent disorder. Secondary prevention has been identified as a key goal in the long-term management of depression. High recurrence rate suggests that there are specific vulnerability factors that increase people's risk for developing repeated episodes of the disorder. Preventive strategies should identify and ameliorate these factors to reduce the individual's risk of subsequent episodes. Biased attention for emotional stimuli is central to the cognitive model where increased sensitivity to negative cues is believed to fuel the negative thoughts and feelings in depression and play a key role in maintaining the illness. Selective biases in attention can be modified by a simple computerized technique; The Attention Bias Modification Task (ABM). This project aims to investigate whether ABM can reduce surrogate and clinical markers of relapse in a large group highly vulnerable to depressive episodes. The effects of ABM, immediately after the two weeks intervention, on three key risk factors for depression will be studied: Residual symptoms, cortisol awakening response and emotion regulation strategies. The participants will be followed up after 1 month, 6 months and 12 months. The hypothesis that ABM will reduce subsequent episodes of low mood over the following 12 months in this group in a manner predicted by early changes in these risk factors will be investigated. It will also be tested if such effects in the lab may be dependent on candidate genes which affect serotonin reuptake and which have been implicated in malleability and emotional learning. Effects on underlying neural correlates of emotion regulation will be studied in an fMRI experiment in a sub-sample and which will also be stratified by serotonin transporter genotype (see also NCT02931487). The predictive value of meta cognitions related to rumination and the possible mediating effects of automatic thoughts and perceived stress will also be investigated in a sub group (see also NCT02648165). The characterization of the cognitive, genetic and neural mechanisms underlying the ABM effect will have key implications for future treatment development and combination with other treatment modalities like pharmacotherapy.

The overarching aim of this project is to develop and pilot an innovative online intervention (Share) that integrates an Individual Internet Intervention (III) and an Internet Support Group (ISG) in preventing Postpartum Major Depression (PPMD). To establish that supportive accountability is a critical component of the intervention, Share will be compared to an III alone, and an ISG without the III components.

Late-life depression levels are escalating, and include 24% of all tenants of Assisted Living (AL) settings. A promising, novel intervention is a computerized visual speed of processing training program known as Road Tour. Road Tour has been show to reduce depressive symptom levels and the risk of onset of clinical depression in community dwelling older adults. The investigators hypothesize that similar benefits will accrue to residents in AL settings. To evaluate this the investigators will use a two-arm, parallel, randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing Road Tour training to attention control using computerized crossword puzzles among 370 adults 55 years old or older who reside in 15-30 AL settings that are partnering with the investigators. The investigators hypothesize that Road Tour participants will have improved cognitive processing speed, lower levels of depressive symptoms, lower likelihood of the onset of clinical depression, less anxiety, lower levels of pain symptoms, and better health-related quality of life. These outcomes will be assessed at baseline, post-training, six months, and one year.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether vilazodone is more effective than citalopram for the treatment of anxious depression. We will use neuroimaging to see whether there are changes in the brains of patients receiving the drug vilazodone that are different from those of citalopram. These changes may show that vilazodone affects the brain differently than most other kinds of standard antidepressant medications.