Comparison study of automatic thoughts between treatment-resistant depression and non-treatment-resistant depression patients

Abstract

Objective To explore the difference of automatic thoughts between treatment-resistant depression patients and non-treatment-resistant depression patients, and whether the symptoms of depression and anxiety can affect the negative automatic thoughts or not. Methods Patients were measured by automatic thoughts questionnaire(ATQ), Hamilton depression scale-17(HAMD-17), Hamilton anxiety scale (HAMA). Results ①Treatment-resistant depression patients and non-treatment-resistant depression patients had no significant difference on the total score of ATQ , which were (81.57±21.63) and (82.86±24.50)respectively.②There was no significant difference on the total score of ATQ between male and female in treatment-resistant depression, which were (81.06±20.54) and (82.26±23.25)respectively.③The correlation coefficient (r value )between the total score of ATQ and two subfactors (cognitive disorder and slow)scores of HAMD, total score of HAMA, mental anxiety factor score of HAMA in TRD group were 0.347, 0.378, 0.279, 0.251 and 0.366 respectively, which significantly correlated. Conclusion The difference in negative automatic thoughts characteristics of treatment-resistant depression and non-depression patients is not significant, and the symptoms of depression and anxiety can increase frequency of automatic thoughts. Key words: Treatment-resistant depression; Non-treatment-resistant depression; Automatic thoughts