Figure 2.

Less relapse after cognitive therapy compared to antidepressant medication. The second phase of the parent study³⁵ followed patients who had responded to antidepressant medication (ADM) or to cognitive therapy (CT).³⁸ Patients who responded to ADM were randomly assigned to either continue ADM treatment for one year (beige and red lines), or to change to placebo treatment for one year (green line). Patients who responded to CT were allowed three sessions of CT during the 1-year continuation period. In the follow-up period, none of the patients received any treatment. The figure shows that prior treatment with CT protected against relapse of depression at least as well as the continued provision of ADM, and better than ADM treatment that was subsequently discontinued. Note that the patient group that was given ADM in the continuation year contained a number of patients who did not adhere to the medication regimen. The red line indicates the response of the ADM-continuation group including these non-compliant patients, whereas the beige line shows the response of the patients in this group after the non-compliant patients had been removed from the analysis. Figure modified, with permission, from REF #38, Figure 1 within that paper – need to obtain permission from the Archives of General Psychiatry.