Mindfulness course effective in people with difficult-to-treat depression, study finds

Mindfulness-based therapy can offer significant relief for individuals who are still depressed after receiving treatment, according to a new clinical trial.

Researchers hope their findings could provide a new treatment pathway for people with depression who have not benefitted from previous treatment.

Study co-author Barbara Barret, Professor of Health Economics a King’s College London, who analysed cost-effectiveness in the trial, said: “We are highly encouraged by our findings, which reveal that MBCT treatment offers a powerful dual benefit for this group: superior patient outcomes coupled with notable cost savings for the NHS.”

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) differs from other psychological therapies by using intensive training in mindfulness meditation to help people develop skills to respond more adaptively to negative mood and stress, in addition to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles which seek to change negative thought patterns.

The new study found that MBCT significantly improved depression symptoms compared to continued treatment as usual.

The average effect was in the small-to-moderate range and comparable to treatment with antidepressants.

Crucially, the study also concludes that providing MBCT as an alternative to usual treatment was cost-effective, at less than £100 per person, and could save the National Health Service (NHS) money by changing the way people use services.

The UK NHS Talking Therapies programme is the world’s largest and most advanced publicly funded psychological therapies service, treating around 670,000 people each year, of which almost half have depression as their primary complaint.

About 50 per cent of those individuals still have some degree of depression when their care ends.

The study involved more than 200 patients who had received NHS talking therapies, but still had depression.

They were recruited across 20 NHS trial sites.

The three lead sites were: Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust, Devon Partnership Foundation Trust and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

One group of participants received eight weekly group-based MBCT sessions delivered by videoconferences, aimed to develop mindfulness skills and guide participants on how to respond more effectively to difficult emotions.

The other group received treatment as usual.

Six months after treatment, patients who had received MBCT had larger improvements in depression symptom scores on average, than those who had received treatment as usual.

Study co-author Professor Barney Dunn, from the University of Exeter, said: “We know there’s a gap in services for people with depression who haven’t got better through NHS Talking Therapies.

“These people often don’t qualify for further specialist mental health care, and so are left with no further options.

“We’ve shown that offering MBCT to this group can be effective and cost-efficient to deliver, and we hope this will lead to it being implemented widely.

“We need investment in this and other areas where there are gaps in service, to ultimately save the NHS money.”