None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide; however, the effect of current front-line treatments for depression is only modest. One reason for these modest outcomes is that knowledge of the cognitive mechanisms maintaining disorders are not well known. One cognitive process recently shown to be impaired in depression is future thinking. Future thinking involves generating mental representations of events that one might be personally involved in, and is crucial to healthy functioning. For example, imagining future thinking is involved in decision-making, setting goals, planning actions, problem-solving, and regulating emotions. The aim of the current study is to evaluate a future thinking training program in a sample of clinically-depressed individuals (aged 18-65), and examine its effects on future thinking and related cognitive, emotional and behavioural variables. This project will provide new insights into ways of targeting specific cognitive vulnerabilities in depression. This will be an online randomized, controlled trial with two arms: 1) future thinking training, and 2) wait-list control. Participants will complete all outcome measures at baseline, then 1 month and 3 month follow-up time-points. It is hypothesised that: • The future thinking training group will report significantly higher future thinking characteristics of specificity, detail and imagery post-intervention, and at 1 and 3 month follow-ups, relative to a usual care group. • The future thinking training group will report significantly higher anticipated and anticipatory pleasure. • Changes in future thinking characteristics between baseline and post-intervention will predict changes on anticipated and anticipatory pleasure between post-intervention and 3 month follow-up.
Interventions
The aim of the current study is to evaluate a future thinking training program in a sample of clinically-depressed individuals, and examine its effects on future thinking and related cognitive, emotional and behavioural variables.
The two-session future thinking training will be conducted in group-based, online format on the skype platform (60-90 minutes each). Participant groups of 3-6 will be led by 1-2 facilitators. The facilitators will be fourth-year graduate psychology students with exper
The aim of the current study is to evaluate a future thinking training program in a sample of clinically-depressed individuals, and examine its effects on future thinking and related cognitive, emotional and behavioural variables. The two-session future thinking training will be conducted in group-based, online format on the skype platform (60-90 minutes each). Participant groups of 3-6 will be led by 1-2 facilitators. The facilitators will be fourth-year graduate psychology students with experience in running episodic thinking training and counselling skills, supervised by a registered clinical psychologist with experience in this training intervention and in assessment and treatment of clinical depression (Dr David Hallford). It will be delivered over the course of two weeks. The first session involves psycho-education about episodic future thinking and its functions, and distinguishing between general and specific episodic future thinking. Participants will then practice generating episodic future thoughts in response to cue words, with demonstrations from the facilitator. Cue words will be positively and neutrally valenced cue (e.g., bicycle, car, happy, knowledge) with a focus on generating detail (e.g., sensorial and scene details, actions, people, thoughts, feelings etc.), using mental imagery, and imagining events from a first-person perspective. Facilitators will provide individual feedback and a homework task to be completed before the next session consisting of practice cue words and providing a daily future thought of something that would or could happen the following day. The second session (1 week later), will follow the same format with additional education on general and specific episodic future thinking, and a focus on anticipation of positive emotions. Participants will be asked to complete the same homework task as Session 1 but generate two specific episodic future thoughts (i.e., one neutral and one positive) per word and include anticipated emotions when generating positive future thoughts. Facilitators will monitor adherence using an attendance and adherence checklist for each session.
Sponsors
Deakin University
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 65 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
1) 18-65 years of age 2) Current diagnosis of Major Depressive Episode assessed using the Electronic Psychological Assessment System (ePASS), an online self-report diagnostic tool validated against face-to-face, structured interviews. This must include endorsement of “more days than not” or “every day” for the anhedonia criterion: “Over the last TWO WEEKS or more, please indicate how often you felt much less interested in or much less able to enjoy most activities". 3) English-speaking 4) An Australian resident. 5) Access to the internet on laptop or home computer
Exclusion criteria
Neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosis by health professional through self-report. To increase the generalisability of the findings, comorbid mental health disorders will not be an exclusion criterion, with the exception of neurodevelopmental disorders given that the training is not adapted to the special needs of these populations.
Outcome results
None listed