DefinePK

Abstract

Depression is a common and disabling mood disorder which is felt by many people all over the world whereby approximately 280 million people are said to be affected. This research is aimed at exploring how such proven brain working recursive therapy (BWRT) Single Session therapy works in reducing depression symptoms of adults in Pakistan where the prevalence of mood disorders in the adult population is around 19.6 percent. The study is a quasi-experimental study that was conducted with a sample size of 100 people, who were diagnosed with moderate or severe depression by means of standardized measures evaluating depression levels after and before the intervention. The present quasi-experimental study tested the effectiveness of Brain Working Recursive Therapy (BWRT) at depressed symptoms reduction in a Pakistani adult (N=104) population with moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms. The sample consisted of 104 individuals, who were randomly split into experimental (n=52) and control (n=52) groups, and represented by equal number of males and females (50%, 50 %, respectively). The analysis was done with the use of SPSS-27, and included descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple regressions. The findings proved the very potent appeal of BWRT: the change between pre-test (M=14.62, SD=1.41) and post-test depression (M=4.94, SD=1.85) scores of the experimental group was very significant t-value (28.50, p<.001) and a large effect size (Cohen d=5.88). However, the control group significantly did not change (t=1.87, p=.45). Psychometric analysis showed that there was very good reliability of depression scale (a=.96), where the scores ranged 1-19 (M=10.38, SD=5.80).  Interestingly, the BWRT was also successful across gender lines with no relevant gender variations in post-intervention scores (male: M=5.15, SD=2.03; female: M=4.73, SD=1.66; p=.327). The effect of the therapy was especially conspicuous to the comparison that revealed the upheld high cases of depression in the control group (male: M=17.08; female: M=16.92). Further analyses indicated that there was a strong negative relationship between social comparison and mental well-being (-.31, p<.01), whereby social comparison was found to explain 18 percent of the variance in well-being (R2=.18, F (1,198) =33.90, p<.001). The research points out that the brief therapies present a possibility to cover the gap in the mental health treatment space in Pakistan but also show no gender difference in their effectiveness. The further studies must examine the longitudinal use of BWRT and the possibility of its application to various populations.