Pretreatment clinical and psychosocial predictors of remission from depression after short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy and solution-focused therapy: a 1-year follow-up study

Abstract

The mutual importance of different predictors of remission was studied in 163 outpatients with depression receiving either short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy or solution-focused therapy. After a 1-year follow-up, the percentage of remission significantly varied between sociodemographic subgroups and was dependent on severity of symptoms, personality disorder, and psychosocial factors but not on psychiatric history, previous psychiatric treatment, or type of therapy received. Simultaneous study showed that the most significant predictors were sense of coherence (based on Sense of Coherence Scale [SOCS]), symptom severity (based on Symptom Checklist-90 [SCL-90] Global Severity Index [GSI]), and education. The relative risks of remission between the lowest and highest quartiles of SOCS and SCL-90 GSI were 0.06 and 0.22 (95% confidence intervals = 0.01–0.35 and 0.05–0.97), respectively. In conclusion, several background factors, especially sense of coherence, predict remission.