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Abstract

Even after remission of the lead symptoms of depression, patients complain frequently about their cognitive dysfunctioning. A promising approach to improve cognitive deficits and subsequently psychosocial functioning poses cognitive remediation therapy. This study investigated the effect of cognitive remediation therapy on neurocognitive and psychosocial functioning in (partly) remitted depressed adults more specifically whether an individualized or generalized training approach is most effective in improving cognitive performance. Fifty-eight (partly) remitted depressed adults with cognitive deficits participated in the study. They were randomly allocated to one of three groups: (1) Individualized training group, (2) generalized training group, (3) waitlist control group. It was found that the participants in the two training groups performed better in an overall composite score as well as for the domains attention and executive functioning than the control group participants. With the exception of the task divided attention, the training effect was stronger for the individualized training group compared to the generalized training group, which were both superior over the control group. Training participants showed improved psychosocial functioning in a self report questionnaire, but not in questionnaires filled out by a reference person. In conclusion the effectiveness of cognitive remediation therapy for (partly) remitted depressed adults could be confirmed. Moreover it could be shown that an individualized training holds potentially greater benefits for patients than general training approaches.