Effect of Psychodrama on the Severity of Symptoms in Depressed Patients

Abstract

Psychodrama has been successfully used in the management of certain psychosomatic ailments. However, no controlled studies examining its effectiveness in depression have been conducted. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a program for psychodrama on the severity of symptoms of depressed patients. This quasi-experimental study was conducted in El-Abassia Hospital for mental health. It included a sample of 30 patients having depression, randomly divided into a study group to attend a psychodrama intervention, and a control group having routine hospital protocol. Data were collected using an interview form with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The study was carried out in assessment, implementation, and evaluation phases. The study group was exposed to 12 one-hour sessions of psychodrama. The study lasted from September to December 2016. The patients in the two groups had similar demographic characteristics. At the pretest, the depression score was higher in the study group (p=0.003), but its duration had no statistically significant difference. After the intervention, all study group patients had no depression, except one, compared to 9 (60.0%) In the control group (p=0.08). The median score of depression was lower in the study group (1.0) compared with the control group (10.0), p=0.001. In multivariate analysis, the intervention was identified as a significant independent negative predictor of the depression score, while married status was a positive predictor. The results point to the effectiveness of a psychodrama intervention in alleviating the severity of depression. Hence, it is recommended to utilize this technique on a larger scale in patients with major depression.