Effects of Two Forms of Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Depression on Future Thinking

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate if future thinking would change following two forms of Internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy (ICBT) for major depression. A second aim was to study the association between pre-post changes in future thinking and pre-post changes in depressive symptoms. Effects of psychological treatments are most often tested with self-report inventories and seldom with tests of cognitive function. We included data from 47 persons diagnosed with major depression who received either e-mail therapy or guided self-help during 8 weeks. Participants completed a future thinking task (FTT), in which they were asked to generate positive and negative events that they thought were going to happen in the future and rated the events in terms of emotion and likelihood. The FTT was completed before and after treatment. Data on depressive symptoms were also collected. FTT index scores for negative events were reduced after treatment. There was no increase for the positive events. Change scores for the FTT negative events and depression symptoms were significantly correlated. We conclude that ICBT may lead to decreased negative future thinking and that changes in depression symptoms correlate to some extent with reductions in negative future thinking.