Telephone Care and Therapy Help to Treat Depression

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 7 (HealthDay News) -- The Mediterranean diet may protect against depression, while telephone care and counseling can help to treat it, according to two studies published in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Almudena Sanchez-Villegas, Ph.D., of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain, and colleagues conducted a study of 10,094 healthy Spaniards recruited the 1999, and found that after a median 4.4 year follow-up there were 480 new cases of depression. They also found an inverse association between risk of depression and adherence to a Mediterranean diet.

Gregory E. Simon, M.D., and colleagues at the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, conducted a trial of 600 patients with depression who received five outreach calls to monitor their condition with or without an eight-session program of cognitive behavioral therapy, or usual care, and found that those who received both interventions had more depression-free days.

"A program of telephone care management plus structured telephone psychotherapy yielded significant and sustained benefits and modest increases in overall costs," the authors write. "The balance of added benefits and added costs was more favorable for the more intensive program. Efforts to improve depression treatment in primary care should consider incorporating structured psychotherapy interventions."

Simon reported financial relationships with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

Abstract - Sanchez-Villegas
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Abstract - Simon
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