Trial reportJournal of marital and family therapy2012
Augmenting antidepressant medication treatment of depressed women with emotionally focused therapy for couples: a randomized pilot study.
Trial report in Journal of marital and family therapy, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- Modifiers in Effects of Combined Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy versus Pharmacotherapy Alone for Adult Depression: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis.Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2026Pooled it
- Promoting Intimate Relationships in Mental Illness: A Systematic Review of Interventions.Community mental health journal · 2024Pooled it
- Couple therapy for depression.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Couples-Focused Prevention Program to Reduce HIV Risk Among Transgender Women and Their Primary Male Partners: Feasibility and Promise of the Couples HIV Intervention Program.AIDS and behavior · 2017Trial
- Does Depression and Relationship Distress Predict Longer Couple Therapy Treatment in Naturalistic Settings?Journal of marital and family therapy · 2026Article
- Emotionally focused couple therapy in cancer survivor couples with marital and sexual problems: a replicated single-case experimental design.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- A Patient Stratification Approach to Identifying the Likelihood of Continued Chronic Depression and Relapse Following Treatment for Depression.Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Article
- A network meta-analysis of the effects of psychotherapies, pharmacotherapies and their combination in the treatment of adult depression.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2020Article
- The Role of Dyadic Discord in Outcomes in Acute Phase Cognitive Therapy for Adults With Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder.Behavior therapy · 2019Article
- Predicting Improvement in Depression Across Therapies Using Indicators of Romantic Relationship Functioning: A Preliminary Investigation.The American journal of family therapy · 2015Article
- Soothing the threatened brain: leveraging contact comfort with emotionally focused therapy.PloS one · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
This is the first study to evaluate adding emotionally focused therapy for couples (EFT) to antidepressant medication in the treatment of women with major depressive disorder and comorbid relationship discord. Twenty-four women and their male partners were randomized to 6 months of medication management alone (MM) or MM augmented with EFT (MM + EFT). MM followed the Texas Medication Algorithm Project guidelines. Fifteen EFT sessions were delivered following the EFT treatment manual. The primary outcome was severity of depressive symptoms (assessed by the 30-item Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Clinician Rated version [IDS-C(30) ] administrated by evaluators blinded to cell assignment). Secondary outcome was relationship quality as assessed by the Quality of Marriage Index. Results from assessments at intake, termination, and two posttreatment follow-ups were analyzed using growth analysis techniques. IDS-C(30) scores improved over 6 months of treatment, regardless of the treatment assignment, and women receiving MM + EFT experienced significantly more improvement in relationship quality compared with women in MM. Because relationship discord after depression treatment predicts worse outcome, interventions improving relationship quality may reduce depression relapse and recurrence. Testing this hypothesis in larger samples with longer follow-up could contribute to knowledge on the mechanisms involved in determining the course of depressive illness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.