Wang YB, Chen XX, Li ST, Yan HP. Effects of family cognitive therapy on aggressive behavior, family functioning, and marital quality in patients with major depression. World J Psychiatry 2025; 15(3): 101190 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i3.101190]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hong-Ping Yan, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Shaoxing 7th People's Hospital, No. 1234 Shengli West Road, Shaoxing 312000, Zhejiang Province, China. hongpingyansih@sina.com
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Mar 19, 2025; 15(3): 101190 Published online Mar 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i3.101190
Effects of family cognitive therapy on aggressive behavior, family functioning, and marital quality in patients with major depression
Yi-Bing Wang, Xin-Xia Chen, Song-Tao Li, Hong-Ping Yan
Yi-Bing Wang, Xin-Xia Chen, Song-Tao Li, Hong-Ping Yan, Department of Psychiatry, Shaoxing 7th People's Hospital, Shaoxing 312000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Wang YB, Chen XX, Li ST, and Yan HP contributed to the design of the study; Wang YB, Chen XX, and Li ST wrote the first draft of the manuscript and performed the experiments; Wang YB and Yan HP revised the final version of the manuscript; All authors have reviewed and approved this manuscript and consented to its publication.
Supported by Zhejiang Province Medical and Health Science and Technology Program, No. 2024KY1735.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Shaoxing 7th People's Hospital Medical Ethics Committee (Approval No. 2024-022-01).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. Additional data related to this research are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request at hongpingyansih@sina.com.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hong-Ping Yan, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Shaoxing 7th People's Hospital, No. 1234 Shengli West Road, Shaoxing 312000, Zhejiang Province, China. hongpingyansih@sina.com
Received: September 6, 2024 Revised: November 6, 2024 Accepted: January 8, 2025 Published online: March 19, 2025 Processing time: 172 Days and 13.5 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Depression is a prevalent mental health disorder with significant impacts on individuals and families. We hypothesize that combining family cognitive therapy (FCT) with pharmacotherapy will be more effective in managing depression and improving family dynamics than pharmacotherapy alone.
AIM
To investigate the effects of FCT combined with sertraline on depression, aggressive behavior, and family functioning in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD).
METHODS
This study involved 178 patients diagnosed with MDD at the Shaoxing 7th People's Hospital from January 2022 to April 2024. Patients were divided into two groups according to whether they received FCT. FCT included both patient-focused cognitive therapy and family-focused psychological guidance over a 12-week period.
RESULTS
The observation group receiving combined treatment showed significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory scores: 27.4 ± 4.7 to 18.6 ± 5.2) compared to the control group (28.1 ± 5.5 to 20.9 ± 4.9), with P = 0.031 for the difference between groups. Improvements in family functioning and marital quality were also observed, with P < 0.001 for key dimensions on the Family Assessment Device and Enrich Marital Scale.
CONCLUSION
The combination of FCT with sertraline effectively reduces depressive symptoms and improves family dynamics in patients with MDD.
Core Tip: The study innovatively combines family cognitive therapy with sertraline for major depressive disorder (MDD), emphasizing the importance of family involvement in treatment. This approach not only targets depressive symptoms but also aims to improve family dynamics and marital quality, providing a holistic strategy for managing MDD and its broader impacts.
