A Prospective Study on the Psychosocial Characteristics and Non-pharmacological Intervention of Patients With Treatment-resistant Depression

The three-year pioneering project began with observing the psychosocial characteristics and demographic profile of a group of TRD cohort, followed by validating the cultural meanings and recovery constructs of TRD through professional and lay focus groups in the first year. In the second to third year, we examined the effectiveness of a 8-week, nurse-led psychosocial intervention with group approach in a randomized control trial (RCT) compared to the controls receiving usual care with three follow-ups. Detailed psychiatric assessment and study interviews have been performed at baseline, 3, 6, and 9 months after the intervention by a senior psychiatrist and a research assistant using standardized operation forms.Structured measurements have been utilized to collect primary outcome variables of psychological distress, suicide risk and resilience as well as secondary outcome measures of quality of life, community reintegration level, perceived satisfaction, and main clinical variables (e.g., treatment adherence, service use such as ER/OPD attendance or hospitalization days). The control group receives usual care of pharmacological therapy provided by the psychiatrists in the Psychiatric Department of the study hospital in northern Taiwan.