The Effect of Group Interpersonal Psychotherapy on Depression among Patients with Depressive Disorder

Abstract

Objective :

To compare depression among patients with depressive disorder before and after received group Interpersonal psychotherapy, and to compare depression among patients with depressive disorder who received group Interpersonal psychotherapy and those who received regular caring activities.

Method :

This was quasi-experimental research. The subject were forty patients with depressive disorder receiving services in outpatient department of Chulalongkron hospital, who met the inclusion criteria by gender and age, were matched pair and then randomly assigned to experimental group and control group, 20 subjects in each group. The research instruments consisted of: The group Interpersonal psychotherapy and, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD-17). All instruments were validated for content validity by 5 professional experts. The reliability of the instruments were reported by Chronbach’s Alpha coefficient of .87. Data were analyzed using dependent t-test.

Results

: Most sample were males. Averaged age of the sample were over fifty years, single, and had undergraduate. The sample worked as merchants and owner business. Averaged monthly income of families were twenty thousand baht. Almost of the sample were first time admit, and received fluoxetine. Almost of the sample were not forget to take medicine and met psychiatrist for follow up. Major findings were as follows: 1) depression scores among patients with depressive disorder who received the group interpersonal psychotherapy had lower, which before and after were 14.85 and 6.40, respectively. 2) depression score among group receiving interpersonal psychotherapy had lower than those receiving regular caring activities (6.40 and 12.00, respectively).

Conclusion

: Findings developed to use interpersonal psychotherapy focuses on relationship problem.The IPT group can reduce depressive symptoms and enhance self esteem.Contribute to the guidelines and how to have good relationships with other people in society. Depressed patients can create a new relationship with supportive psychotherapy. Patients with depressive disorder when a conflict with someone close. The patient can choose to resolve disputes and to improve communication patterns from a more appropriate form of communication. If nurses use interpersonal psychotherapy group for depressed patients in conjunction with regular caring activities.To help patients better and to reduce the duration of treatment. Reduces depression, relationship problems in the depressed patients. Help prevent a more severe disease and the patient can come back to live in the community as usual, and the quality of life improved.