Typical patterns of depressive disorders during outpatient psychotherapy and their prediction

Objectives: Are there typical patterns of outpatient psychotherapy among depressed patients? What characterizes patients with different patterns? Methods: We examined N = 548 patients with primary depressive disorders using a naturalistic design. Using a latent-state-mixture model and depression measures at baseline, therapy end and 1-year follow-up we found a total of five patterns. Subgroups were compared with respect to sociodemographic and treatment-related variables. Results: Responders with moderate depressive symptoms at baseline and responders with severe symptoms at baseline were most common (54 % and 25 % of the sample, respectively) compared to late responders (9 %), small-response patients (9 %) and recidivists (4 %). Patterns of change were related to symptom intensity at baseline and ratings of perceived helpfulness at the end of treatment. Conclusions: Since psychometric scales better predicted change pattern than sociodemographic characteristics, primary and secondary diagnoses, psychometric assessments and feedback systems could be a useful supplement to traditional quality assurance procedures.