Combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy more effective in treating depression

Psychologic treatment of depression compared with pharmacotherapy and combined treatment in primary care: A network meta-analysis

2021-05-11

(Press-News.org) Most patients with depression are treated in primary care, however, relatively few clinical trials for treating depression have focused on primary care. Researchers at the Vrije University Amsterdam examined the effects of the two major approaches to treating depression: psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, as well as combined treatment and care-as-usual. The study integrated the results of 58 randomized controlled trials with a total of 9,301 patients. Results concluded that both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy were significantly more effective than care-as-usual or waitlist control. However, they found no significant difference between psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy as stand-alone treatments. Combined treatment, particularly in studies that included cognitive behavioral therapy, was better than either pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy alone. Treatment in primary care should be organized to accommodate any of these treatments in response to patients' preferences and values, the authors write.

INFORMATION:

Psychologic Treatment of Depression Compared With Pharmacotherapy and Combined Treatment in Primary Care: A Network Meta-Analysis Pim Cuijpers, PhD, et al Vrije University, Amsterdam, Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology and Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute; The Netherlands https://www.annfammed.org/content/19/3/262

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Newer class of fluoroquinolone antibiotics may present reduced risk of tendon ruptures

2021-05-11

It's widely understood that people taking a common class of antibiotics, like ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin, run the risk of tendonitis and tendon ruptures. However, a new analysis sheds light on newer, third-generation fluoroquinolones and suggests they may have a lower risk of Achilles tendon rupture. Researchers from Jichi Medical University in Tochigi, Japan, used health care administrative data to identify 504 patient cases of Achilles tendon ruptures with co-occurrence of antibiotics. They found that third-generation fluoroquinolones were not associated with an increase in Achilles tendon rupture. First- ...

Focus on outliers creates flawed snap judgments

2021-05-11

DURHAM, N.C. -- You enter a room and quickly scan the crowd to gain a sense of who's there - how many men versus women. How reliable is your estimate? Not very, according to new research from Duke University. In an experimental study, researchers found that participants consistently erred in estimating the proportion of men and women in a group. And participants erred in a particular way: They overestimated whichever group was in the minority. "Our attention is drawn to outliers," said Mel W. Khaw, a postdoctoral research associate at Duke and the study's lead author. "We tend to overestimate people who stand out in a crowd." For the study, which appears ...

Shared medical appointments help patients with prediabetes

2021-05-11

Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of shared medical appointments for people with pre-diabetes compared with a group of patients receiving usual care. Shared medical appointments are typically delivered in a medical clinic by physicians and other health care providers. Within the context of this study, shared medical appointments consisted of patients consulting with their doctors one-on-one and then joining a group of similar patients to set goals and review lab results with the same family ...

Interdisciplinary consults can help primary care docs treat patients with chronic pain

2021-05-11

Between 11% to 40% of adults in the United States experience chronic pain, and primary care physicians may feel ill-equipped to effectively and safely care for patients with chronic pain, addiction or both. Researchers from Tufts University conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary consultation service that supports primary care physicians who care for patients experiencing chronic pain and addiction. The goal was to identify new and effective strategies that clinics can use to support PCPs. From that interdisciplinary consultation service, the researchers collected ...

Rules of the road: the navigational 'strategies' of bacteria in motion

2021-05-11

Bacteria that move around live on the edge. All the time. Their success, be it in finding nutrients, fending off predators or multiplying depends on how efficiently they navigate through their confining microscopic habitats. Whether these habitats are in animal or plant tissues, in waste, or in other materials. In a recent paper published in PNAS, a team of researchers led by McGill University, has described a number of factors affecting how five, very different, species of bacteria search and navigate through varied microfluidic environments which pose various decisional challenges. This increased understanding of the bacterial space searching and navigational 'strategies' has implications ...

Patient expectations, doctors' prescribing habits, and antimicrobial resistance

2021-05-11

Antibiotics: Patient Expectations and Doctors' Prescribing Habits May Contribute to Antimicrobial Resistance Inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for upper respiratory tract infections contributes to antibiotic resistance, making some bacterial infections difficult to treat. This often leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays and increased mortality. Still, many physicians report prescribing antibiotics at their patients' request. To address patients' expectations for antibiotic prescribing for URTIs, researchers conducted an experiment in which study participants were assigned brief educational videos to watch on a tablet immediately prior to their appointment. The authors randomized patients into three groups - one that viewed a presentation about ...

Artificial Intelligence and drones will help pin down Sosnovsky's hogweed

2021-05-11

Skoltech scientists have created a new monitoring system for agricultural applications that performs real-time image segmentation on board the drone to identify hogweed. The research was published in a high-profile journal, IEEE Transactions on Computers. Sosnovsky's hogweed is equally hazardous for farming, local ecosystems, and human health. Direct contact with human skin, especially if aggravated by exposure to the Sun, causes severe burns that require continuous medical care and take weeks to heal. The rampant spread of Sosnovsky's hogweed has become a real environmental disaster that extends across the whole of ...

Study examines connection between oral and general health in patients with diabetes

2021-05-11

Individuals with diabetes are at greater risk of developing oral health issues, like gum disease, yet care for these linked health issues are usually disconnected, split between primary care and dental care. A research team from the University of Amsterdam developed an intervention that provided primary care-based oral health information and dental referrals for patients with diabetes. In a cluster randomized controlled trial, 764 patients from 24 primary care practices received either the oral health support or standard primary care. Participants were asked to rate their oral health quality of life, as well as their general health and any oral health complaints, at the start and end of the study. Analysis showed that individuals who received the primary care-based oral health support ...

Low-temperature crystallization of phase-pure α-formamidinium lead iodide enabled by study

2021-05-11

Though different fabrication approaches exist, two-step deposition is one of the main experimental techniques now used to make efficient, stable PSCs, especially on the industrial scale. The process involves first depositing lead iodide (PbI2) and then adding halide salts of monovalent cations such as methylammonium iodide (MAI) and formamidinium iodide (FAI) to convert it to perovskite. While this two-step deposition is better than other options, it is difficult to maintain reproducible high performance and long-term stability when scaling up, mostly because of a lack ...

This stinks: New research finds sense of smell and pneumonia linked

2021-05-11

EAST LANSING, Mich. - An acute loss of smell is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19, but for two decades it has been linked to other maladies among them Parkinson's disease and dementia. Now, a poor sense of smell may signify a higher risk of pneumonia in older adults, says a team of Michigan State University researchers. "About a quarter of adults 65 years or older have a poor sense of smell," said Honglei Chen, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics within MSU's College of Human Medicine. "Unlike vision or hearing impairment, this sensory deficit has been largely neglected; more than two-thirds of people with a poor sense of smell do not know they have it." In a first-of-its-kind study, Chen and his team found a possible link ...

Combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy more effective in treating depression

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: