Face-to-face CBT Treatment of Depression With Smartphone Support

Mild to moderate depression is a major health problem, which lowers the quality of life for the individual and generates enormous costs for society. Several forms of psychotherapy have been found to be effective in the treatment of depression. Among these, behavioral activation has a strong empirical base. The efficacy of behavioral activation for treating major depressive disorders has been established in a number of studies over the last four decades. Moreover face-to-face treatments could benefit from using smartphones as an adjunct to the regular sessions, which in the case of behavioral activation treatments for depression could facilitate activity scheduling and homework, which are crucial elements of the treatment. It may also be possible to reduce the number of sessions. Since it has been shown that full behavioral activation is an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression, this study will be designed as a so-called non-inferiority study in which the treatment group, given fewer meetings face-to-face, but instead support in the form of a smartphone application. Instead of a traditional behavioral activation treatment of 10 sessions, the treatment group will be given four face-to-face CBT sessions and a smartphone app as a complement and support to the four sessions. As a control, the investigators will give full behavioral activation with 10 sessions of face-to-face therapy.