Combining Antidepressants and Attention Bias Modification in Depression

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale,Beck Depression Inventory II

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent psychiatric condition
 associated with significant disability, mortality and economic burden. A large proportion of
 MDD patients are treated in primary health care (PHC) in the municipalities and represent a
 challenging group. Attentional Bias Modification (ABM) training in combination with
 antidepressants (SSRIs) could be an effective treatment. The overall aim of this study is to
 test the hypothesis that adding an ABM procedure to regular treatment with antidepressants in
 PHC will result in further improvement of symptoms compared to treatment with antidepressants
 alone (treatment as usual, TAU) and as compared to an active comparison condition.
 
 Methods: A total of 246 patients with a diagnosis of MDD will be included in this study. The
 study is a three-armed pragmatic randomized controlled trial comparing the efficacy of ABM as
 add-on to treatment with antidepressants in primary care (ABM condition) compared to standard
 antidepressant treatment (TAU condition). In a third group participants will complete the
 same schedule of intermediate assessments as the ABM condition in addition to TAU , but no
 ABM, thus controlling for the non-training-specific aspects of the ABM condition (SSRI Active
 comparison group).
 
 Discussion:
 
 The clinical outcome of this study may help develop easy accessible, low cost treatment of
 depression in PHC. Moreover, the study aims to broaden our knowledge of optimal treatment for
 patients with a MDD by providing adjunct treatment to facilitate recovery and long term gain