Treatment Benefits Adults With Major Depression, With or Without Childhood Trauma

TUESDAY, Sept. 27, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Adults with major depressive disorder and a history of childhood trauma can still benefit from recommended depression treatments, according to a review published online Sept. 22 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Erika Kuzminskaite, from Vrije University in Amsterdam, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify studies comparing the efficacy of evidence-based pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, or a combination intervention for adult patients with depressive disorders with or without childhood trauma.

Based on 54 trials (6,830 participants), the researchers found that 62 percent of patients with major depressive disorder reported a history of childhood trauma. Patients with childhood trauma benefitted from active treatment similarly to patients without childhood trauma history, despite having more severe depression at baseline. There were no significant differences by childhood trauma type, study design, depression diagnosis, assessment method of childhood trauma, study quality, year, or treatment type or length. However, North American studies showed larger treatment effects for patients with childhood trauma. While most studies had a moderate to high risk for bias (72 percent), a sensitivity analysis limited to low-bias studies yielded similar findings.

“Evidence-based psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy should be offered to patients with major depressive disorder regardless of childhood trauma status,” the authors write.

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