Therapeutic effects of drug therapy with and without cognitive behaviour therapy in post-stroke depression

Cerebrovascular accidents can cause multiple psychiatric disorders especially depressive mood. Results of several researches have shown the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. The aim of this study was comparison of the effects of drug therapy alone and with CBT in the post-stroke depression.

In this clinical trial, 28 female patients with post-stroke depression were randomly selected and divided into case and control groups. Patients in the case group received CBT with drug therapy, and the control group received antidepressant drugs alone. Beck depression test was used to compare the recovery rate of depression in both groups after treatment interventions. Data were analyzed by means of SPSS version 15 using statistical tests of Student-t, fisher and ANOVA at the significant level of P<0.05.

Data analysis showed that although both CBT with drug therapy (P<0.001) and drug therapy alone (P<0.001) were effective on the post-stroke depression, there was a significant difference between the two groups (P<0.001).

According to the results of this study, both drug therapy alone and combined with CBT were effective on the treatment of post-stroke depression, but the combined therapy was more effective than the drug therapy alone.