A Pilot Study Investigating Behavioral Prescriptions for Depression

Depression is a prevalent and expensive condition. Many patients are seeking and receiving treatment for depression in the primary care setting where pharmaceutical interventions prevail as the predominant treatment. While psychotropic medications can certainly help ameliorate mental and behavioral problems, all medical interventions carry with them certain risks and side effects. A natural multiple-baseline (across participants), single-case experimental design was used in a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of “behavioral prescriptions” for cognitive-behavioral bibliotherapy with five depressed patients in a primary care setting. Results indicated that final depression self-report scores were lower than baseline and pre-treatment reports for every participant. At three month follow-up, three out of five participants reported no symptoms of depression, one participant reported minimal symptoms of depression, and one participant reported mild symptoms of depression. Behavioral prescriptions for cognitive bibliotherapy warrant further controlled research and may offer a cost-effective and practical treatment alternative to the pharmaceutical intervention of depression in primary care.