An Effective Innovative Intervention Program (Combining Emotion-Focused Cognitive Therapy and Acupuncture) for the Treatment of Patients With Depressive Symptoms

The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an Innovative Intervention Program to treat depression, by combining emotion-focused cognitive therapy with acupuncture. A total of 30 patients, suffering from depression was selected and randomly assigned to two groups: the experimental (15), who received the innovative intervention program; and a control group (15), who just continued to receive their usual care. Three psychological tests (BDI-II, Zung SDS, and HRSD) were administered to both groups both before and after the implementation of the program. The pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group showed significant differences (p=0.000) at 0.05 levels. The scores of the control group and experimental groups showed significant differences (P=0.000 or 0.001) in the post-test. This Innovative Intervention Program (CEFCTA) had a significant influence in reducing the level of depression for adult sufferers.