Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 MA of clinical psychology of Semnan university
2 Associate Professor of Ferdosi Mashhad University
Abstract
Depressionis one of the most important kinds of affective disorders and has been presented as the first weakening factor in humanity society that its high prevalence and complex nature has made necessary it to use new treatments. Considering that pharmacotherapy is often used in depression treatment, the present study was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of systematic motivational counseling and comparison it with pharmacotherapy. This research conducted with pretest- posttest plan with control group. The sample of this experimental study was consisted of 30 dysthymic female patients referred to psychological clinic in university of Firdausi Mashhad during 9 months in 2011 that were selected by available sampling method and randomly assigned to three groups (10 patients per group), one experimental group for systematic motivational counseling with pharmacotherapy, one for mere pharmacotherapy and one group for control group. Collecting data instruments were consisted of Beck Depression Inventory and Personal Concerns Inventory. In order to analysis the data; descriptive statistics and covariance analysis in inferential statistics surface had been used. The results of covariance analysis after adjusting the pretest scores showed thatthere is a meaningful differences between posttest scores of two groups (p<0/05). Investigation of adjusted means is indicator for efficacy of systematic motivational counseling with pharmacotherapymore thanmere pharmacotherapyandtwo experimental groups in comparison of control group had more decrease in depression symptoms. According to the results of this research systematic motivational counseling with pharmacotherapyis more effective thanmerepharmacotherapy in the treatment ofdysthymic patients.
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