Daily Process Design Applied to Cognitive Therapy

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project represents the first application of daily process measures of stress and coping, and idiographic indices of affect regulation, to research on cognitive therapy (CT) for depression. The daily stress and coping measures will be administered by an interactive voice response (IVR) procedure, and the idiographic indices will be computed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Specifically, idiographic indices of affect regulation will be computed at the beginning of CT (Time 1), and again six sessions later (Time 2). We will evaluate the utility of the Time 1 indices as predictors of CT outcome (depression-reduction), and the utility of the Time 2 indices as measures of the effects of CT. It is hypothesized that depressed individuals with better initial ability to regulate daily negative affect will show more symptom reduction in CT than individuals with worse initial ability to regulate daily negative affect. It is also predicted that patients' ability to regulate daily negative affect will-improve during the course of CT. If successful, our project will demonstrate the value of an IVR-based daily process methodology, and HLM-based idiographic indices of daily affect regulation, for research on psychotherapy outcome. [unreadable] [unreadable]