Effects of a Psychotherapy Intervention in Depressed Patients With Coronary Artery Disease

Summary

In patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), depressive symptoms are frequent and highly relevant for quality of life, health behaviour, health care costs, and prognosis. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the effects of a psychotherapy intervention on symptoms of depression in patients with CAD. Therefore, depressed patients diagnosed with CAD will be randomised into a controlled intervention trial, comparing a stepwise psychotherapy intervention with usual cardiological care. The manualized psychotherapy intervention starts with three individual sessions offered on a weekly basis. Afterwards, symptoms of depression will be re-evaluated and, in case of persisting symptoms, patients receive an additional 25 sessions of psychodynamic group psychotherapy over a total period of one year. The psychodynamic approach was chosen in order to specifically take into account personality traits such as negative affectivity and social inhibition, the components of the Type D personality, which may explain why recent cognitive behavioural psychotherapy (CBT) trials produced only small effects in depressed CAD patients. The investigators expect that the intervention will reduce depressive symptoms as well as the prevalence of depressive disorders. It will also improve both behaviourally and physiologically mediated cardiovascular risk indicators, promote better quality of life, and reduce healthcare costs. Subgroup analyses will be performed in order to identify gender-specific treatment effects, effects on immunological stress reactivity, and genetic predictors of treatment success.

Conditions

• Depression
• Coronary Artery Disease

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Psychotherapy

Stepwise, manualized individual and group psychotherapy in addition to usual cardiological care.

BEHAVIORAL

Information session

One information session about living with heart disease.

OTHER

Usual cardiological care

Usual cardiological care

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Cologne

  collaborator OTHER

• Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

  collaborator OTHER

• Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

  collaborator OTHER

• University Hospital Freiburg

  collaborator OTHER

• Kerckhoff Rehabilitation Center Bad Nauheim

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Heidelberg University

  collaborator OTHER

• Hannover Medical School

  collaborator OTHER

• Technical University of Munich

  collaborator OTHER

• Technische Universität Dresden

  collaborator OTHER

• Nuremberg General Hospital

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• The Clinical Trials Centre Cologne

  collaborator OTHER

• German Research Foundation

  collaborator OTHER

• Medical University of Graz

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Göttingen

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Christoph Herrmann-Lingen, MD · University of Goettingen, Dept. of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy

• Christian Albus, MD · University of Cologne, Dept. of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2008-11-30

Primary Completion

2013-04-30

Completion

2013-04-30

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations