Interpersonal Psychotherapy Efficacy in Different Clinical Settings

Interpersonal therapy is an effective brief and limited therapy originally developed for major depression disorder but nowadays also highly effective in other psychiatric disorders [1,2]. This therapy uses the biopsychosocial model as a tool to approach depression and relieve the symptoms by focusing the intervention in the present and on the interpersonal problems behind it [3]. The interpersonal problems are divided in three main problem areas: grief and loss, interpersonal disputes and role transition. These are the focus of the intervention after being identified by the therapist and the patient, at the end of the assessment and initial phase, which is the first of a three phase psychotherapeutic process. The three phases of the therapy take normally 12 to 20 sessions, three-to-four month period. The initial phase incorporates assessment, interpersonal inventory, formulation and treatment agreement. The middle phase includes patient communication style analysis and focus on the agreed problem area. When the symptoms have reduced or resolved, usually connected with the resolution of the problem area, the therapy enters the third and final phase, when it is important to review what happened since the beginning of the therapy, focusing in the changes made by the patient, namely self awareness, situation analysis capacity, communication style, symptom decrease and the capacity to signalize future situations that can trigger new depressive symptoms and which skills were more adapted. Originally the therapy did not have included following sessions but nowadays there are some authors that preconize maintenance sessions [4,5] and a not ending therapy, giving the opportunity to the patient to return whenever he want [6]. The literature of clinical practice of interpersonal therapy in Portugal is very scarce, even knowing that the therapy has shown being highly effective, similar to cognitive behaviour therapies in major depression disorder. The only known portuguese study until date is from Carlos Gois [7]. Given this lack of research, we pretend to evaluate the efficacy of the interpersonal therapy in a portuguese major depression disorder population in both public and private settings. Our aim for this research is to see and compare the results of IPT in two different settings. Participants: 64 patients that seeked for treatment in both settings and after being diagnosticated with major depression disorder, they were offered a full interpersonal therapy intervention. Method: The interpersonal therapy basic model was the one of Scott Stuart [6] and we collect demographic data from all the patients and used two clinical scales: Beck depression inventory and adult attachment scale ? R. Results: They show that interpersonal therapy was equally effective in both settings. Conclusion: Interpersonal therapy is effective in the treatment of a portuguese population with major depression disorder, giving more strength for is spreading through all the mental health workers.