Mindfulness Meditation On A Par With Antidepressants At Preventing Depression Relapse

In preventing depression relapse, a course of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy using meditation was found to be as effective as traditional antidepressant medication when tested against placebo in a recent study done in Canada.

You can read about the study, carried out at outpatient clinics at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, and St Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton, both in Ontario, Canada, in the December issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

First author Dr Zindel Segal, who is Head of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Clinic in the Clinical Research Department at CAMH, told the media that:

"With the growing recognition that major depression is a recurrent disorder, patients need treatment options for preventing depression from returning to their lives."

A particular cause for concern is community-based records suggest that many patients stop taking their antidepressants too soon, either because of the side effects or because they don't like the idea of being on the drugs for years.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is being increasingly used as a psychotherapeutic approach for stress reduction, pain management, behavior change, and for self-management of symptoms of depression. (MORE)

Source: Medical News Today