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Importance: Relapse prevention in recurrent depression is a significant public health problem, and antidepressants are the current first-line treatment approach. Identifying an equally efficacious nonpharmacological intervention would be an important development.Objective: To conduct a meta-analysis on individual patient data to examine the efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) compared with usual care and other active treatments, including antidepressants, in treating those with recurrent depression.Data Sources: English-language studies published or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals identified from EMBASE, PubMed/Medline, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register from the first available year to November 22, 2014. Searches were conducted from November 2010 to November 2014.Study Selection: Randomized trials of manualized MBCT for relapse prevention in recurrent depression in full or partial remission that compared MBCT with at least 1 non-MBCT treatment, including usual care.Data Extraction and Synthesis: This was an update to a previous meta-analysis. We screened 2555 new records after removing duplicates. Abstracts were screened for full-text extraction (S.S.) and checked by another researcher (T.D.). There were no disagreements. Of the original 2555 studies, 766 were evaluated against full study inclusion criteria, and we acquired full text for 8. Of these, 4 studies were excluded, and the remaining 4 were combined with the 6 studies identified from the previous meta-analysis, yielding 10 studies for qualitative synthesis. Full patient data were not available for 1 of these studies, resulting in 9 studies with individual patient data, which were included in the quantitative synthesis.Results: Of the 1258 patients included, the mean (SD) age was 47.1 (11.9) years, and 944 (75.0%) were female. A 2-stage random effects approach showed that patients receiving MBCT had a reduced risk of depressive relapse within a 60-week follow-up period compared with those who did not receive MBCT (hazard ratio, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.58-0.82). Furthermore, comparisons with active treatments suggest a reduced risk of depressive relapse within a 60-week follow-up period (hazard ratio, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.64-0.97). Using a 1-stage approach, sociodemographic (ie, age, sex, education, and relationship status) and psychiatric (ie, age at onset and number of previous episodes of depression) variables showed no statistically significant interaction with MBCT treatment. However, there was some evidence to suggest that a greater severity of depressive symptoms prior to treatment was associated with a larger effect of MBCT compared with other treatments.Conclusions and Relevance: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy appears efficacious as a treatment for relapse prevention for those with recurrent depression, particularly those with more pronounced residual symptoms. Recommendations are made concerning how future trials can address remaining uncertainties and improve the rigor of the field.

We describe the proportion of severely depressed outpatients reaching complete remission at the different stages of a drug treatment algorithm. We compare several treatment options for SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) non-responders and test the feasibility of the algorithm in clinical conditions.Patients with severe depressive disorders (ICD-10; MADRSor = 25) admitted to an academic outpatient clinic were enrolled in this algorithm-guided sequential treatment protocol (starting with an SSRI and ending with a tricyclic, lithium, triodothyronine combination). The general principle of the algorithm was to boost the drug therapy in the event of non-response.135 patients entered the study and 131 were eligible for analysis. From this group, 86 patients dropped out (65.6%), 40 reached complete remission (30.5%) and 5 patients did not reach remission at all (3.8%). In the 117 patients to whom a last observation carried forward approach was applied, the median improvement of the MADRS score was 48.0% (range -20.7%-100%), with 48.7% of patients considered responders, 23.1% partial responders and 28.2% non-responders. Median retention time was 8 weeks (range 2-34).This algorithm-guided antidepressant treatment was acceptable for clinicians and resulted in an elevated final response rate among study completers. However, the dropout rate was high, mainly due to treatment interruption or non-observance.

Accumulating scientific and clinical evidence highlighted pathological hyperinflammation as a cardinal feature of SARS-CoV-2 infection and acute COVID-19 disease. With the emergence of long COVID-19 syndrome, several chronic health consequences, including neuropsychiatric sequelae, have gained attention from the public and medical communities. Since inflammatory mediators have also been accredited as putative biomarkers of suicidal ideations and behaviors, hyper- and neuroinflammation might share some colliding points, overlapping and being interconnected in the context of COVID-19. This review aims to provide a summary of current knowledge on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of COVID-19-associated hyper/neuroinflammation with focus on their relevance to the inflammatory hypothesis of suicide development. Subsequently, strategies to alleviate COVID-19 hyper/neuroinflammation by immunomodulatory agents (many of which at experimental stages) as well as psychopharmacologic/psychotherapeutic approaches are also mentioned. While suicide risk in COVID-19 survivors - until now little known - needs further analysis through longitudinal studies, current observations and mechanistic postulates warrant additional attention to this possibly emerging mental health concern.