Online Cognitive Control Training for Remitted Depressed Patients

University Ghent

Status: Completed

Conditions: Major Depression in Remission

Treatments: Behavioral: Active control training; Behavioral: Cognitive control training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03278756

B/14730/RMD

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an internet-delivered cognitive control training as a preventive intervention for remitted depressed patients. Half of the participants will receive a cognitive control training, while the other half will receive a low cognitive load training that acts as an active control condition.

Full description

Prospective studies have linked impaired cognitive control to increased cognitive vulnerability for future depression. Importantly, experimental studies indicate that cognitive control training can be used to reduce rumination and depressive symptomatology in MDD (major depressive disorder) and RMD (remitted depressed) samples. Provided that remitted depressed patients form a high-risk group for developing future depressive episodes, the current study will explore whether an internet-delivered cognitive control training can be used to reduce vulnerability for future depression in remitted depressed patients.

A computer training, consisting of 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, will be administered to participants, which are remitted depressed patients. This training can either be a cognitive control training, using an adaptive paced auditory serial addition task, or an active control training, with a low cognitive load task.

Dependent variables will be assessed pre- and post-training, as well as 3 and 6 months after the training, and consist of depressive symptomatology, related variables and cognitive control measures.

Enrollment: 68 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• History of ≥ 1 depressive episodes (major or bipolar)
• Currently in stable full or partial remission (≥ 3 months)

Exclusion criteria

• Major depressive disorder (current or less than 3 months in remission)
• Bipolar disorder (current or less than 3 months in remission)
• Psychotic disorder (current and/or previous)
• Neurological impairments (current and/or previous)
• Excessive substance abuse (current and/or previous)
• No ongoing psychotherapeutic treatment (maintenance treatment is allowed, but with a frequency of less than once every three weeks)
• Use of antidepressant medication is allowed if kept at a constant level

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

---

68 participants in 2 patient groups

Cognitive Control Training

Experimental group

Description:

A cognitive control training, consisting of 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, will be administered. The task in this training is an adaptive paced auditory serial addition task, where participants need to click on the sum of the last two heard digits.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Cognitive control training

Active Control Training

Active Comparator group

Description:

An active control training, consisting of 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, will be administered. The task in this training is an adaptive low load cognitive task, where participants need to click on the last heard digit.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Active control training