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The British Journal of Psychiatry (2004) 185: 511-515
© 2004 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

Meeting the unmet need for depression services with psycho-educational self-confidence workshops: preliminary report

June S. L. Brown, PhD, CPsychol

Psychology Department, Institute of Psychiatry

Sandra A. Elliott, PhD, CPsychol

Greenwich University

Jed Boardman, PhD, FRCPsych

Health Services Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry

Joe Ferns, BSc and Joanna Morrison, BSc

Psychology Department, Institute of Psychiatry, London,UK

Correspondence: Dr June Brown, Psychology Department (PO77), Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Tel: 020 7848 5004; fax: 020 7919 2473; e-mail: June.Brown{at}iop.kcl.ac.uk

Declaration of interest None.

Background The prevalence of depression has not fallen despite effective treatments being available.

Aims To examine the effectiveness of a psycho-educational intervention designed to be easily accessible.

Method Large-scale, self-referral ‘How to improve your self-confidence’ workshops were run in a leisure centre at weekends. The day-long programme used a cognitive–behavioural approach. A randomised controlled trial design using waiting-list controls was employed. Three months after the workshop, results of workshop participants were compared with those of the waiting list control group.

Results Among 120 people who self-referred, 75% of participants had General Health Questionnaire scores of 3 and above. Over 39% had never previously consulted their general practitioners about their depression. At 3-month follow-up, members of the experimental group were significantly less depressed, less distressed and reported higher self-esteem.

Conclusions Workshops were shown to be accessible and effective; a larger, more rigorous trialis now needed.




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